The world of Otzi the Iceman

Well, I have long wanted to explore the possibilities inherent in a fantasy setting that doesnt resemble medieval Europe in any way. Recently, I've become interested in the discovery of the so-called Otzi the Iceman, a well preserved prehistoric mummy found in a glacier on the Italian Alps. He lived circa 3300 BCE, during the so called "Copper Age", a fascinating period of time. I already have 5-6 pages of material that I can share.

If there is sufficient interest, I would be happy to share the results of my research, translated into a setting that could be used as the basis of an historical fantasy. The purpose would be to allow other people to contribute to the fleshing out of the setting by contributing their own research, suggestions or questions. I expect the end result to be highly speculative, but consistent enough with what is known of the time to maintain a degree of plausibility (if this were sci fi, I would call it "semi-hard").

Any interest in this project?

Edited by DeMarquis on Jul 7th 2018 at 9:41:29 AM

Fuck yeah! I'm kind of miffed I didn't think to do it myself, but either way I'm glad you did.

Hey, I read about Ötzi when I was a kid! Worldbuilding projects with an anthropology focus are right up my alley, and I'd really like to hear more about this one.

Well, since there is a modicum of interest in this topic, I intended to post the first intallment tonight. However, I was visiting a relative over the weekend, and I left my laptop at her place. I should have it back by tomorrow. Until then, I apologize for the delay.

OK, here we go:

I: Overview

“Otzi” is the name given to the mummified remains of a male individual who died in south-central Europe in the last few centuries of the 4th millenium See Here. His body was remarkably well preserved inside a glacier, along with his clothing and a wide assortment of tools and weapons. His era pre-dates the spread of Indo-Europeans beyond the fringes of Europe, and provides a unique window into the lifestyle of people living in that place and time. He was also murdered by an arrow that had been fired into his back. That fact, in addition to a number of other, partially healed wounds on his body, and the record of his last few days as revealed by the remains of the food he had eaten, but not yet digested, has provided an insight into his daily life that continues to fascinate people today. This essay is a speculative attempt to recreate the world he lived in for fictional purposes, and is intended to provide an outline of a setting within which a fantasy novel could be written. Although an attempt has been made to be consistent with the historical facts as we know them, this should be considered strictly a work of speculation, and all conclusions and opinions are those of the author.

II. The Geographic Setting:

The world of Otzi the Iceman is centered on the southern slopes of the Italian Alps, circa approx 3300-3200 BCE. The lower slopes of the Alps (below the tree line) are dominated by forested mountain river valleys. This inhabitable region of the Alps extends over 100 miles northward from the alluvial plain surrounding the Po river, and over 300-400 miles curving from east to west (Otzi died about 80 or so miles from the plain, depending on how you measure it). These mountains surround the Po river drainage basin like the northern half of a bowl. A region this size could have supported thousands of people, albeit thinly spread in small villages. It’s a world of amazing vistas, pine groves, cold mountain streams, deep lakes, and abundant wildlife. Cold and snowy in the winter, the summers are relatively dry and mild.

South of the alpine region is the Po river valley. Roughly similar in shape to an oblong bowl, several hundred miles long east to west and over 100 miles wide north to south, it was a more tropical biome marked by a warmer, humid climate, seasonal storms, frequent flooding, and often foggy along the river. It’s a lusher area of thicker vegitation, decidious trees, meadows, swamps and riverbanks. The river itself begins as a mountain stream in the west end of the plain, and extends over 300 miles east to the sea. The upper half of the river is relatively narrow and fast moving, while towards the east it becomes wider, with swampy banks and frequent flooding. The drainage basin was and is quite fertile, and during the time of Otzi, it could have easily supported tens of thousands of people, clustered in hundreds of farming communities, connected by roads and the Po's extensive tributary system.

The Po river empties into the Adriatic, an arm of the Mediteranean Sea that extends in a northwest-southeast direction between the eastern coast of Italy and the western coast of the Balkans. It’s about 500 miles long and 100 miles wide. Beyond that would have been the lands of myth and legend. To the immediate east by sea there is a sea-faring civilization centered in the Aegean Sea. Beyond the coast are the city-states of Sumer, already thousands of years old, and south across the sea is Egypt (before the pyramids, but the first pharaoh Menes arose at just about this time). North and west beyond the mountains would likely have been fabled lands unknown (perhaps they have heard of the horse people of the east-central European steppes, or the megalithic structures being built in the west). West of Egypt is an endless savanna inhabited by monsterous animals and savage people who hunt them (the desertification of the Sahara was only just beginning at this time).

The “Sea in the Center of the World” extends from the Levantine coast in the east to the farthest west of the known world at a narrow straight that, by mythology, leads directly to the edge of the Earth (the place where the sun sets?). These locations would possibly have been described in legendary form by the traders and travelers to be found in the sea ports along the Adriatic coast. Some of them might actually even have been to some of these places, or claim to have been. It was no more than 100 miles as the crow flies from where Otzi died to the coast where trading colonies could have been located. He could easily have visited there and heard of these places.

Edited by DeMarquis on Jul 9th 2018 at 2:45:21 PM

No interest? Oh well, it was worth a try...

I'm not very good at research but if your still thinking about this I'd be happy to help. How much magic do you want in your setting?

Thank you for your question. I was thinking that there was no interest in this topic after all.

As for magic, I want to keep it low key, the better to adhere to an historically realistic setting, so Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane is in full effect, but only from the reader's point of view—the characters fully believe in the supernatural and think they are interacting with it (just as in real life). Indiginous people commonly believe that the world around them is bound together by the spiritual connections between all living things, and by careful lifelong study a practioner can develop a hieghtened sense of awareness of these connections, not to mention the ability to commune with the ancestor spirits and totems of various kinds. Such individuals are able to obtain visions, or confer blessings or curses on individuals or communities. I imagine Otzi's tribe beleived something along these lines. Because Destiny Says So will probably come into play, as will Spirit Advisor.

So definately not Magic A Is Magic A. Magic operates at the whim of the spirits, so humans can only exert limited control over it. Limitations on the use of magic include that it requires a lifetime commitment to become a practioner (what we would today call a "Shaman" or a "seer"), that one is only supposed to tap into the spirit world to protect or promote the interests of one's tribe and/or the local ecosystem, and the belief systems of other communities can counteract it. The story could include elements of Wild Magic, and possibly Training the Gift of Magic could be a plot element.

Maybe do what *shudders* Clan of the Cave bear did with the it's famous physical find and don't make Ozi the main character. Maybe make his mysterious death the start of the plot.

Edit: Maybe Ozi was completing some ritual and his murder, presumably before he could complete his taks leaves his tribe believing they are cursed. It could then be up to his apprentice to journey into the mountains to complete Ozi's work, all the while watching out for the people that killed him.

Edited by JackOLantern1337 on Jul 18th 2018 at 9:58:35 AM

I keep getting the mental image of Far Cry Primal and can't really move past that.

@Jack: Im not sure what you are referring to by "physical find"? Im ashamed to admit that I havent read that series. Do you think I should?

Otherwise, it sounds like you are reading my mind! I was considering making Otzi the main character of the prologue, whose killing sets the whole thing off. His child or grandchild takes it from there.

@Bel: Far Cry, eh? Ive never played it but it sounds awesome. I hope I could come up with a more interesting plot than that. Ultimately, I would like to take the protag on a world spanning journey that would expose the reader to the incredible variety of cultures and lifestyles that existed in that era. It really has an amazing untapped potential.

Basically in the Victorian era they found this old Neanderthal who had lived with a birth defect and had been killed by falling rocks. Since he was the first Neanderthal found the Victorians assumed all Neanderthals were ugly hunchbacks, and also stupid, hence the popular image of the species. Only later was it discovered that he was not normal for them. In Clan of the Cave Bear the man who died is a triabal shaman who takes in a Homo Sapien girl and raises her as part of his "family." I only read the first book, and from what I hear it's the only good one, the rest basically being porn.

(Then maybe I'll read it for other reasons). So what you meant was incorporating what we know about the actual Otzi as a secondary character? If so, then yes, that's my intent.

Edited by DeMarquis on Jul 20th 2018 at 7:32:32 AM

Second Installment:

Society

People living in the alpine region of northern Italy manifested a mixed culture that was transitioning out of the neolithic and into the copper age. Otzi famously possessed a copper axe, but the rest of his equipment was firmly neolithic in nature. Neolithic technology is characterized by a reliance on worked stone, animal hides, wood, and woven grasses as the material for weapons, tools, clothes, and shelter. Stone tools including weapons were ground and polished into very fine, highly specialized forms for specific tasks and purposes. Otzi had a collection of sophisticated tools including a flint dagger, flint arrowheads, a fire-cinder storing container, medicinal herbs, a bird net, and yew bow. His clothes were a combination of animal furs and woven grasses, the axe handle and the bow were finely carved wood. He had no items made of textiles, and the only metal was the copper axe head (which was shaped more like a tomahawk than an axe). From an examination of his preserved remains, scientists have determined that his diet consisted of a combination of meat from both wild and domesticated animals as well as both wild and domesticated plants.

The kicker is the copper axe. Scientific analysis has determined that Otzi suffered from ailments that would be expected from someone involved in the primitive smelting of copper (as well as arthritis and intestinal worms), and there are known copper deposits in the area (one of the few in Europe that were being worked at the time). Oddly, the metal in Otzi's axe did not come from local deposits, but from sources a few hundred miles to the south. Still, it's evident that Otzi belonged to a mostly neolithic culture that was nevertheless involved in mining, processing, and almost certainly trading what was then a highly desired and valuable mineral resource. The potential for rapid cultural change and inter-group violence is obvious.

I speculate that Otzi’s people lived more like a tribal hunting-gathering society than an agricultural community. They would have supplemented food from hunting and wild gathering with semi-domesticated gardens, a few animals kept within the village, and, I would think, more exotic food items obtained in trade from the farming communities located on the river plain. Otzi’s people would have most likely lived in small villages, possibly ring-forts given the evidence of violent conflict, and organized into extensive clans and tribal societies stretching across tens or even hundreds of miles. The villages may have supported 20-30 family units at an average of 5 people each (100-150 people). Their shelters, like their tools, would have been highly individualized, hand-made, and built entirely of organic material collected nearby (ie, thatched huts).Yet they would have been relatively sedentary (as opposed to nomadic), tied to their valley by the presence of surrounding tribes and the necessity of defending the copper deposits in their territory.

I imagine a society more organized than, say, the Plains Indians or Steppe nomads, but less developed than, say, the Aztecs or the Celts. Imagine a pre-contact Iroquois Confederation with accesss to copper and trade ties to another people similar to proto-ancient Greeks.

Down in the plain, the people living there are biologically related to the Alpine tribes but living a more settled lifestyle more closely based on organized agriculture—someting like the Inca’s or the Aztec’s crossed with the Celts. Still clinging to a tribal identity, but larger in scale, with settlements increasing in size to several hundred family units near the coast (1000 or more people). The larger settlements would have included a few specialized craftspeople who spend their lives practicing one skilled trade. They may have made their living from herding and fishing as well as village-based farming.

Farther down the coast, and possibly at the mouth of the Po itself, would have been the trading colonies of an early sea-faring people. They had arrived overland and by boat from the south and east, originating somewhere in the Aegian/Anatolian area (the sea surrounding present day Greece and Turkey). It was these people who, via their coastal colonies, first introduced farming into Italy (and Europe). They would have lived in walled towns, possibly even made of stone, which act as ports and markets for trade goods. These people had access to sail boats, copper armor, weapons and other specialized items including plows for farming. I speculate that they possessed a culture based on an early form of hereditary social heirarchy (ie, classes consisting of a warrior elite, a preist cult, a merchant middle class, and peasants at the bottom). They also would likely have access to highly specialized craftsmen, including experts in metalworking, ceramics, shipbuilding and construction. They would have buried their dead in a cemetary. This group was slowly moving westward via the Mediteranean, but the process was very slow and incremental. The technological changes introduced by these people would have more or less peacefully replaced the traditional lifestyle pursued by the northern Italian plain communities in another few hundred years, and likely enough would have transformed the neolithic alpine communities a few hundred years after that (somewhere out in the margins to the north or west would be yet another set of tribal communities that Otzi’s people were influencing. We know this from the changes in pottery styles at about that time). This might have happened except for the arrival in a few hundred years of Indo-European invaders into southern Europe during the next millenium (these are the horse people of the steppes mentioned above) who will completely displace everyone. Within a millenia, Otzi’s way of life in Europe will disappear. But I would imagine that very few people would have been fully aware of this process while it was happening.

One interesting implication is that skin tone systematically changes as a function of geography and technology—the predominant skin color is lighter, and technology is less developed, the farther north, and conversely skin is darker, and technology and social organization more advanced, the farther south one goes, a process that culminates with Ancient Egypt in North Africa (at that time just getting started). This is, of course, a reversal of the pattern we more typically see in the modern world, or in most fantasy fiction.

Do we know if Otzi came from the area he was found? Could he be a travler from somewhere far away. If not then maybe the ax was a gift from another clan with similar technology.

Or maybe, and this is me getting an idea for the plot, Ozi was from a clan a few hundred miles to the south. Maybe they were the only ones for hundreds of miles who had deposits and knew how to smelt copper. This would have given them power. I'm not sure if military power would have been as highly valued, I heard that Neolithic civilizations preferred trade to war, but that power could have been ritual or commercial. And important enough to kill over. Ozi decided to defect for whatever reason, forbidden love, a feud with his leaders, desire to teach a new tribe who he now knew to have a deposit how to smelt, and thus become a big fish in a small pond. Hell maybe he was an exiled. Regardless his old tribe didn't like him spreading their technology around and killed him for it.

If you want to do a story showing a journey around the world then the first book could be ended by Ozi's original tribe destroying the village and forcing it's people to migrate. Or they could offer to spare it in exchange for expelling his imidiate family and apprentices.

A cool scene is the main character trudging through the Alpine snow, nearing death, and hallucinating his master, whose body he has not found. It would be an interesting way to bring the story full circle.

That's an interesting idea. They have sequenced Otzi's DNA, and they know he belonged to a lineage they now call "Haplogroup K", which arrived in Italy from the east, from an area of southern Russia near the Caucasus Mountains. But that migration took place over thousands of years, and I suppose nothing prevents Otzi himself from having been born or raised in central Italy. Perhaps he part of the group that was responsible for brining the art of copper smelting to the Alpine region.

What I know of neolithic cultures is that their population density was too low to support organized warfare, but that inter-tribal raiding could have been quite common. Raids are conducted by hunter-gatherer cultures to keep the neighbors population of fighters down and exert control over hunting territories. Add copper to that mix and it could have gotten quite volatile, esp. if a more technologically advanced community got involved. Did some city state sponor the invasion of the alpine region in order to move their own allies into control of some newly discovered deposits? A move that went well at first, and then ended disasterously? Maybe.

The Mediterranean sort of begs to be circumnavigated. I wouldn't mind the protagonist traveling along the coast eastward through multiple civilizations until they return to Italy to confront the killer or killers. The most obvious theme would seem to be the clash of civilizations, and the gradual replacement of the old by the new. A bittersweet ending, perhaps, but it doesnt have to be a tragedy.

Edited by DeMarquis on Jul 22nd 2018 at 9:35:36 AM

I heard something about Anatolia? Maybe you could do something that would be the "based on a true story" version of Aneias.

Edit: Do you have any idea on what kind of character you want your protagonist to be?

Edited by JackOLantern1337 on Jul 22nd 2018 at 12:49:00 PM

Silly, Aneias is from an Indo-European myth, and reflects their cultural sensibilities. As for the protag, I thought I would use Otzi's grand-kid, training as a seer-apprentice, suddenly displaced without village or family at about age 14. Probably a girl, but I haven't made my final decision.

Edited by DeMarquis on Jul 23rd 2018 at 9:49:01 AM

Third Installment

Culture and Beliefs

I hold to the opinion that belief systems mostly reflect the macro-economic/technological context that people find themselves living in. Based on what we know from hunter-gathering societies during historical times, people who depend closely on food and materials collected from the wild, and have relatively little protection from the weather and the elements, and therefore are strongly affected by seasonal and other changes in the local ecosystem, will see themselves as spiritually bound to the natural forces in play around them. They are likely to see all living things as connected together in a mystical web of life. Such people not uncommonly see themselves as bonded to one another through lines of descent that are interwoven among clans and tribes. These interwoven lines of descent are often seen as a direct parallel to the interdependencies seen between animals and plants in the local environment. Ancestor worship is common, often represented as animal totems. Typically, the common ancestor spirit of a clan or a tribe is an animal or an element of nature. This type of belief system lends itself well to rituals of worship that center on altered states of consciousness, a unity between self and cosmos, and sacrilization of skills and activities necessary for group survival (ie, rituals centered on hunting, gathering, tool making, and similar necessities of survival). Ritualistic practices are usually overseen by a group of experienced “seers” or “shamen”. Observing, learning and immersing oneself in the ebb and flow of the surrounding terrain would be a highly valued mindset. Seers seek mystical visions that provide insight into the desires of the mystical spirits that surround and inhabit the village. There is rarely a formal “pantheon” per se, as each tribe will envision the numerous forces of nature in a wide diversity of ways—every tree, every lake and river, every species of animal has it’s own spirit, in harmonic balance with every other. There may be a distant, abstract “Creator Spirit” behind it all, but who rarely intervenes in the daily lives of individual people, clans or tribes.

It is not unlikely that the copper trade is disrupting the economic basis of the Otzi’s tribe, and therefore their daily lifestyle and belief system as well. Given the potential corrupting influence that concentrations of copper can have on the environment, human health, and the and the effect of an influx of foreign lifestyles and values as a result of new trade relations, the liklihood of wrenching social and psychological transformation is easy to envision.

The plains people might have had an early form of polytheistic belief system based on a simple pantheon (a sky father, an earth mother, a son that represents seasonal fertility, etc.), possibly borrowed from the sea-faring people they were in direct contact with. Feeling less connection with the forces of nature (except in an adversarial sense, as when drought kills their harvest), their beliefs were more likely to have been conceptual in nature, centering on human or human-like individual entities with personalities and legendary stories, because that better reflects the complex social relationships that they are embedded in. The Sea-faring people will be like that as well, only more so.

Fourth and final Installment (unless there is some interest in further discussion):

Economy and Governance

It is well documented that hunter-gathering societies tend to be more egalitarian than ones based on more advanced forms of agriculture. Within the village, clan and even tribe, the rule is often something like “To each according to their need, and if you want more than that, you have to go get it yourself.” Everyone would have been expected to contribute to the village to the extent of their ability. With outsiders, in contrast, a more reciprocal relationship would have developed. Trading would not necessarily have been “tit for tat” in some quantified value, as modern people might expect. Tribal societies like Otzi’s would not have had a currency, nor needed one. Native Americans famously traded with European and Anglo-American traders in beaver pelts, but that reflected the needs of the traders, not the Native Americans. Perhaps something similar developed with the sea-faring people. But between the alpine tribes, and perhaps even with the plains people, there would likely have been something more similar to a “gift economy”, where each village or clan makes gifts to neighboring ones, and at some indefinate point in the future (perhaps at a seasonal ceremonial gathering) recieves a roughly equivalent one in return. I see Otzi’s people traveling downstream to the plains perhaps three times a year (spring, summer and fall?) to meeting with people from other tribes and communities at a large lake or other convenient location. Such gathering might have included up to several thousand people at a time, including representatives of the sea-faring traders. The Fall harvest ceremony would have been an ideal time to trade copper ingots for various foodstuffs and other necessities and luxuries.

In terms of gender relations, tribal societies are typically more egalitarian in this sense as well. Women are not treated as the property of men, perhaps not least because they have little sense of property. Within the clan or tribe, generally speaking, physical abuse of women is uncommon, rape is forbidden, daughters and wives cannot be bought/traded or sold (between tribes is another matter). But in spite of all this, it’s a strongly gendered world. There is men’s work, and there is women’s, with little overlap between the two. The specific details vary from culture to culture, but very roughly activities and relations that are contained within the village are typically the domain of the women, and activities that take place outside it are the domain of the men. Hunting, scouting, trading and war are male activities, while domesticated food sources, household chores and childrearing are tended to by the women. Exceptions are not uncommon—every tribe could have it’s female warrior, or it’s male maker of clothing. But such exceptions would generally have to prove their worth to the village in order to be permitted to violate the norms—a woman would have to be an extraordinary warrior to be tolerated, an average one would not do, and the same for making clothing. A sexist double standard, to be sure, but probably the way it was.

Confrontation between tribes could be brutal. In times of war, anyone who can be killed is killed, and killing or kidnapping unarmed women, children and even injured men is a common practice. Prisoners are either ritually tortured and executed or adopted into the tribe, perhaps after passing a test. It was a world of extremes.

On the other hand, since each village is basically a large extended family, marriage between villages, clans, and even tribes is a general rule. Such intermarriages are often a source of political ties—you are less likely to kill someone you are related to by marriage. The interplay of killings and marriages must have made for some complex and interesting inter-tribal politics.

In terms of government, tribal villages commonly have chiefs, often selected from among a certain lineage or clan, but not passed down from parent to child. Seers are often selected the same way. The people doing the selecting would typically be a kind of council of elders of the village, those too old to work but held in high esteem for their wisdom. Elderly people are seen as living representatives of the ancestor spirits, and often have more formal day to day authority than the cheifs or the seers. Larger units including clans and tribes work by a similar arrangement. However, there is also a spectrum of governance approaches that transition into a more formal social class arrangement, including cheifs who develop a more centralized power structure, professional warriors who do not farm, and a seer community that develops into a preistly class.

We have no direct evidence regarding where Otzi’s people fit into that spectrum, but I have envisioned them as being at least somewhat similar to a loose confederation of tribes, with lineage-based cheifs and seers not unlike the historical Iroquois Confederation. Down in the plains, the Po River communities might have started to see cheifs who accumulate enough power and influence to reserve their position for their sons or children, and families who have been farming the same plot of land for several generations. They might also have simple temple complexes, and special seers who oversee the rituals for those complexes, which are dedicated to specific temple-spirits who are taking on some god-like properties (an individual identity and mythological stories about their exploits). A bit like proto-Celts, although they are not the direct ancestors of the Celts.

The Sea-faring people, of course, have more fully developed forms of these systems. The Sumerian city-states have dynastic Kings. In Egypt, the Pharaoh is a God (possibly known at this time as “The Skorpion King”).

Well, that's it. You are all free to use my notes as the basis of a story, if you like, because I want to encourage the spread of fantasy that isnt based on the traditional "Psudo Medieval Europe" style setting. If anyone does find this useful and incorporates some of it into a work, I would like to hear about it. Thanks for reading.

Edited by DeMarquis on Sep 23rd 2018 at 10:53:33 AM