Experimental reconstruction of these shoes, done by archaeologist Petr Hlaváček in the 1990s and subsequently refined, showed that the design was functionally sophisticated. When Hlaváček wore replicas in the mountains and in the snow, he found them warmer and more effective than expected from initial appearance. The grass insulation was not a primitive approximation of better materials; it was a well-understood technology that maintained its insulating properties even when wet, because the grass layer allowed moisture to escape while retaining air pockets for insulation.
The hat was bearskin, with a leather chin strap to secure it in wind. The bear from which it came was identified as a brown bear of the subspecies then common in Alpine Europe.
The grass cloak — an outer layer made of woven grass or straw — has sometimes been described as a rain garment or a sitting mat, but its exact function is not definitively established. Similar garments were used in Alpine farming communities into the twentieth century as protective outer layers in wet weather, and this remains the most common interpretation.
The total picture of Ötzi’s clothing is of someone dressed for sustained work in the high Alpine environment: layered animal hides chosen for different functional properties, effective cold-weather insulation in the shoes, a wind-protection hat. The craftsmanship was high and the materials were diverse enough to suggest access to a community with various animal-raising and hunting capabilities, or participation in exchange networks that provided different materials.
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## The Last Meals: Forensic Gastronomy
The analysis of Ötzi’s stomach contents, completed by a team led by Frank Maixner at Eurac Research in a 2018 study published in *Current Biology*, produced unusually detailed information about what he ate in his final hours — and what that eating tells us about where he came from and the kind of diet his community maintained.