The Man in the Ice: The Preserved Body of a Neolithic Man Reveals the Secrets of the Stone Age [Hardcover]

The cover of this book announces itself as "The amazing inside story of the 5000-year-old body found trapped in a glacier in the alps", by the "leader of the scientific investigation". Should be good, eh? Unfortunately, Spindler is not a talented writer; good editing could have knocked his book into shape, but this has not been done.

Intially, we get off to an exciting start with the discovery of the body. At this point, it seems Spindler is going to adopt the style of a "police procedural" whodunnit, but he gets bogged down in detail. Very soon the reader tires of the blow-by-blow, phone-call by phone-call account of events. There is neither dramatic tension nor moving human drama. Spindler is writing soon after events (the book was published in German in 1993) and an irritatingly large amount of his energy is directed at countering criticism of the various (entirely understandable) blunders that occurred during the recovery of the body.

The site was at in a position which meant only experienced mountaineers could easily reach it; these mountaineers didn't have the knowledge to recognise the exceptional nature of the objects found with the body, and damaged them; previously the oldest bodies to come out of the ice had been about 400 years old, and these had been reduced to smithereens, so naturally the mountaineers assumed this well-preserved body must be quite recent; bad weather made bringing in experts in helicopters almost impossible; the site was repeatedly covered by fresh snow falls, making investigation tricky. Once the nature of the finds was established, an efficient investigation swung into place, with co-operation between several nations and a wide range of experts. Spindler, who had encountered hysterical press speculation in the early days, feels it necessary to take the first third of the book to expand on these simple facts. We have to wade through this before we get to the results of their investigations.

These are presented in a manner which is neither properly academic, nor lucid enough to appeal to the general reader. There is a distressing lack of simple diagrams where they are most needed. Both the quiver and the backpack are complex, sophisticated structures; Spindler describes their construction at length in words that leave us utterly bemused, where a simple sketch would have been as plain as can be.

One tends to be more critical of books one has paid a lot of money for; I was given this book, and I think if I had paid for it, I would have been more impatient. About halfway through, I experienced a strong desire to find a different, better-written book on the subject. The combination of poor presentation, irrelevant digressions (there are many of these) and lack of suitable illustrations make for a great deal of frustration. Almost everything you want to know about the man, his equipment, and his culture are in there (though later research has brought a number of facts to light missed by Spindler's team, not least the fact that the man bled to death from a flint arrowhead deep in his shoulder - search news/bbc.co.uk for more). It's just that you have to grind your way through a lot that is of little interest to get there. If this was the official academic report one could understand it; in a "popular" book on the subject it is a serious flaw.

I recently bought this book from a second hand book shop and had a vague memory of having heard about the finding of the Ice Man years ago. Spindler begins by immediately and ably engaging the reader with his recount of the quickly unfolding events immediately after the Ice Man, Otzi as he is now known, was found quite by accident by a German couple. Otzi, the mummified corpse of a late Neolithic man who lived approximately 5000 years ago, had been partly issued forth from a melting glacier. It had melted to an exceptional extent because of unusually sustained high temperatures. Spindler tells us how his body had been mummified and why he had been preserved with scant damage before being found. The initial bungles and mis-analysis as to his age led to wranglings as to where he should be examined, whether in Italy or Austria because he was found so close to the border between these two countries. Mis-calculation as to his age meant that he and his precious possessions were not treated with the degree of care which their great age demanded. Damage to the mummified corpse and his artefacts inevitably resulted.

The book lays before us in a number of sections the results of the analysis of Otzi and his possessions, so that Spindler is able to tell us, amongst other things, where Otzi had lived, what his occupation was, what ailments he had been treated for, what his artefacts and clothing were made from and where the raw materials that they were made from had probably been sourced, what they were used for, whether he had made them himself or somebody else had, what his last meal had been and how he died. I found all of this enthralling and fascinating.

I have only one criticism of this book and that is Spindler's rebuttal of the accusations that were hurled at him and his team at the time that the investigations were being undertaken. Whilst I can well understand that a man with Spindler's credentials and expertise would have found these irksome, to say the least, I believe he should have taken a longer view and realised that over time people would not remember or simply not be interested. His ardent rebuttals are tainted in bitterness and this is not attractive.

I strongly recommend this book to anyone remotely interested in prehistory; it will awaken your enthusiasm to learn more.

In 1991, a body was discovered partially hidden in meltwater from an Austrian glacier. Initially thought to be a recent murder or accident victim, Konrad Spindler had the entirely enviable task of explaining to waiting journalists that this was in fact the remains of a 5000 year old man. It's his tendency to entirely justifiable theatrics that make his archaeology such fun to read.

Almost as interesting as the archaeology is the preliminary tale of the politics of possession. For those of us who've made our escape from academe and might regret it, it's always instructive to be reminded that scholars get so little cash or kudos that when an opportunity like this one comes along, it's not to be missed. Hence the ongoing battle for Ötzi the ice man between the Austrians and the Italians on the other side of the valley.

The middle third of the book provides an exhaustive catalogue and commentary on the items found in the vicinity of the body. Many of these are the sole relics of their type ever found; certainly as a group they are totally unique. The clothing in particular is fascinating; personally I think if I were wearing straw-stuffed boots and a grass cloak, up a mountain would not be my first choice of place to be.

So often we think of the Stone Age in such dead terms: cave pictures, a few crude tools, the remains of a rubbish dump. This is a chance (perhaps the only chance) to see these people in terms of humanity, in a living, breathing, functioning scenario. The final section of the book attempts to place the entire find into context, of what is known already of the Iceman's society, and of the more general conclusions which might be drawn from his evidence. Spindler is quick to point out that much of this is speculative, and subject to change: this is fortunate as subsequent reseach has shown that a piece of evidence for the cause of death from the body itself was overlooked for ten years.

This is a fascinating book, as much for its insights into archaeological methodology as Stone Age culture itself. Recommended.