| View Larger Image | Iceman: Uncovering the Life and Times of a Prehistoric Man Found in an Alpine Glacier | Paperbackby Brenda Fowler (Author)
| List Price: | $15.00 | | Price: | $8.39 | | You Save: | $6.61 (44%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | University of Chicago Press | | Edition: | 1st Edition | | Page Count: | 330 Pages | | Publication Date: | September 16, 2001 | | Sales Rank: | 126,480th |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
On September 19, 1991 a couple hiking along an Alpine ridge stumbled upon a frozen, intact corpse melting out of a glacier. He was dubbed "the Iceman," and his discovery—along with the realization that he was actually 5,000 years old—set off a whirlwind of political, scientific, and media activity that made him an overnight sensation. In this remarkable and dramatic book, Brenda Fowler takes readers through the bizarre odyssey that began in the Stone Age and continued for years after the Iceman was unearthed. |
Amazon.com Review
In 1991, a dead man was found in a glacier on the Italian side of the Tyrolean Alps. How could he have known, as he settled down for a very long winter's nap, that his discovery would unleash a circus of political, scientific, and journalistic shenanigans that would make and break careers and cause international tension? Science writer Brenda Fowler takes a peek at the bizarre odyssey of this incredibly well-preserved frozen corpse in Iceman, covering every step of his transition from Stone Age accident victim to celebrity specimen to museum piece. The cast of characters involved is large and colorful, including archaeologists, smalltime politicians, curators, writers, and even channelers claiming to speak for Ötzi, as he came to be known. Initially taken to Austria and studied there, he was brought back closer to where he was found in northern Italy after years of political and scientific wrangling, though evidence suggests he may have originally come from modern-day Switzerland. Beyond the battles between nationalistic and egotistical players, Iceman contains an absorbing examination of the scientific process at work: hypotheses announced and discarded, the accretion of new evidence, and the ever-narrowing range of explanations for the find. The story is far from over, as research continues even as the question of Ötzi's resting place is settled (temporarily?). With luck, we may soon learn as much about our recent ancestors as we recently learned about ourselves. --Rob Lightner |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 17 reviews)
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Frozen out by Thomas A. Liese (Salt Lake City, Ut United States)  3 Stars
June 30, 2008
I had hoped to learn of the way of life of the 5300-corpse found in a glacier in the Alps. Instead there was the story of the conflicts and struggles of the scientists exploiting him. There is a small kernel of Iceman information, but it must be dug out, as he was.
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The Iceman Thinketh by Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.)  4 Stars
May 10, 2008
Otzi, the frozen cadaver now residing in a museum in Bolzano, Italy, was discovered by hikers in the glacial ice of the Tyrolean Alps, in 1991. He'd been there a long time - roughly 5300 years - undisturbed until global warming revealed his presence to the curious. The discovery has been of enormous value to archaeologists, since in addition to his well-preserved male corpse, Otzi's clothes, shoes, and "tool kit" has provided a wealth of info about bronze-age inhabitants of the region.
Note, please, that I specified the "Tirolean" Alps. I've had the privilege of living in Merano, in the Italian "occupied zone" of Tyrol, where the dialect called Romansch is in fact an ancient German. Austria and Italy have quarreled over the Tyrol since the Renaissance, and the current disposition of the border is a result of pan-European meddling, from the Sudtiroler's point of view. This quarrel was revivified by the exglaciation of Otzi; the squabble over the precise location of his discovery and the ultimate possession of his remains is one of the chief subjects of this journalistic book. The second focus of the book is the melee that took place between archaeologists over the right to study Otzi and his effects. That's not entirely a pretty story, but hey! scientists are human and have careers to foster. General analysis of what Otzi has to "say" about his life and times forms a distant third topic. I'd have preferred more of the latter, but the book would have been unmarketably brief.
I carried this book in a dry-bag in my kayak on an expedition into the glacial fiords of Patagonia. As it turned out, I had only a few minutes per day to read before darkness, so I had to finish it on an airplane. It wouldn't have blended well with my thoughts while kayaking anyway, thoughts which were centered on Otzi and his fate rather than on any contemporary human business. "Ice is nice, and would suffice" said Robert Frost. Wouldn't it be an elegant fate to be entombed in ice for the hikers of 7300 AD to discover? Suicide by glacier! A typical Swede, I hate to be tended. I could willingly wait until 7300 AD to have anyone meddle with my body.
Such were my thoughts at moments, gaping up at the glaciers of Torres del Payne, but these thoughts were whisked aside by the blue-haired beauty of the ice. Fortunately I also had three iPods along, loaded with Bach, Monteverdi, and Ockeghem. If Otzi had been so equipped, he might also have been determined to live longer.
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I never get enough about this.... by Kathleen R. Wyatt (Estacada, Oregon)  5 Stars
April 09, 2008
I started reading about the Ice Man when he was first discovered a number of years ago. This book is so informative and interesting and shows that even in the "adult" scientific world men and women can and do act like children. I always believed that mankind had great abilities from the beginning of time and I think the age of this corpse shows just how completely wrong anthropologists have been regarding their "theories" over the years about early man. This is a must read book. Kathleen Wyatt
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A Constnatly Fascinating Book by Tim R. Niles (Silicon Valley) 5 Stars
March 11, 2002
One year ago I read this book, transfixed by the writing. Fowler clearly got the science of the subject material better than "The Man in the Ice" (which I bought as soon as it came out.)As an engineer, and student of the development of both the sciences and the technologies, it is often amazing how little purity exists in new developments. Certainly, if one of the large projects - I've been on a few with international media coverage - is analyzed from the inside, it looks VERY different than the media hype or soundbites. Fowler wrote a book so filled with hooks that it will affix itself to anyone with a scintilla of curiosity, but whether she consciously considered this or not, her result was not only the history of one man dying high on a mountain glacier several thousand years ago and how he lived, but the story of how WE live in the same environs NOW, and how institutions of science can be rendered impotent by their own internal dynamics as amplified by the various needs of individual researchers.The Iceman's society was clearly fragmented and very rudimentary. There is no way to know if he even had much of a language, but we who live in the 21st century have benefitted from thousands of years of written history, the development of science, technology, and government/society... and, quite frankly, we almost botched this incredible discovery. It's a wonder that the Iceman wasn't sold to a rendering plant and turned into food pellets for mad cows!I guess if you don't want to know anything about the present state of our world society and why people would even BE in that area now, this would be pretty disrupting to you. It would require skimming through many pages of 'inconsequential' information to get what you'd really want: a time travel experience without knowledge of the society that produced the time machine or the technology of the time machine itself. It's rare enough to find a book that GETS the story of a present day development correctly, but one that gets the overall structure of something like Iceman... is... well, almost as rare as the Icemen himself.
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A Frozen Mummy Comes Back To Life! by James M. Deem (NY United States) 5 Stars
August 02, 2001
Brenda Fowler's training as a journalist pays a handsome reward in this thoroughly-researched and well-written account of Ötzi's discovery on September 21, 1991, his well-intentioned but badly flawed recovery, and his archaeological importance, as well as the academic, political, legal, and financial intrigue (almost always petty) taking place behind the scenes. For eight years, Fowler interviewed everyone involved with Ötzi to uncover the truth about the sometimes misreported and confusing "facts" published in the media. She also has taken a discerning look at the various personalities involved: from the austere Konrad Spindler (who became the main spokesperson concerning Ötzi--and the main recipient of the financial rewards) to the Simons (who first found the body and later wanted to be paid for their discovery) to Klaus Oeggl, a young German botanist, whose brilliant studies of Ötzi countered Spindler's own (fairly unscientific) theory.Her hard work clearly shows: this is as much an archaeological mystery (set both in the Copper Age and the modern scientific world) as it is a record of the facts and speculations about an archaeological wonder named Ötzi. I highly recommend this book. You won't stop turning the pages--and when you're done. you'll want to go visit Ötzi at his Bolzano, Italy home.Eleven chapters, a prologue and epilogue, as well as detailed notes, a lengthy bibliography, and a thorough index. 313 pages, with 33 black and white photo plates inserted in the center of the book. The photos show Ötzi, his accessories, and many of the personalities described in the book. These are not National Geographic quality photos, but that's not the point of Fowler's book. You won't go wrong by reading it.
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| Frozen Man (Redfeather Books.)
by David Getz (Author), Peter McCarty (Illustrator)
When an archaeologist examines a body found frozen in the Austrian Alps, he learns something extraordinary. The well-preserved body-- and the tools and clothing found at the site-- indicates that the man died more than 5,000 years ago.
* ALA Recommended Book for Reluctant Readers
* Hungry Mind Review Children's Book of Distinction
* NSTA-CBC Outstanding Science Trade Book for Children
| | | The Man in the Ice: The Discovery of a 5,000-Year-Old Body Reveals the Secrets of the Stone Age
by Konrad Spindler (Author)
The discovery of a prehistoric man in a glacier in 1991 captured headlines throughout the world. Subsequent investigations into the body itself--and the extraordinary artifacts found close by--heralded one of the most important archaeological events of our time. Combining scientific authority with masterful storytelling, Spindler creates a fascinating portrait of one of humankind's most ancient ancestors. 32 pp full-color photos.
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| Bodies from the Ice: Melting Glaciers and the Recovery of the Past
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In 1991, mountain climbers on the Niederjoch Glacier on the Italian-Austrian border came across something unexpected: a body. It had been a very warm summer, and five bodies had already turned up in the area. But something here was different. The materials found with the body suggested it might be very old, perhaps from the 1800s. But radiocarbon dating proved the iceman was 5,300 years older, from the Copper Age. He was named Ötzi and he is the oldest human mummy preserved in ice ever...
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| Record of the Past, The: An Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Archaeology
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This book introduces readers to anthropological enquiry, and examines the major issues and themes in physical anthropological and archaeological investigation. It strongly emphasizes WHAT physical anthropologists and archeologists do with the information they study. Chapter topics include evolution, the primates, human variation, Paleolithic cultures, and the roles of the applied anthropologist. For those individuals who understand that an enhanced global awareness is essential for people...
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