The analysis used a combination of metabarcoding (DNA sequencing of mixed biological material), microscopic analysis of plant and animal cell structures, and lipid (fat) analysis to identify the components of two distinct meals visible in the stomach and intestinal samples.
The last meal, consumed roughly two hours before death, was substantial. It included ibex — the wild mountain goat of the Alpine region — and red deer, both present in the form of cooked meat. With the meat came einkorn wheat, an early domesticated grain variety ancestral to some modern wheat strains. There were also traces of several plant foods, including species consistent with what would have been available at altitude in the Alps in late summer or early autumn.
The high-fat content of the meat was notable. Ibex and red deer, hunted wild, are lean animals by modern commercial standards, but Ötzi’s last meal showed unusually high concentrations of fat. Maixner and colleagues interpreted this as deliberate selection of fatty portions or processing of the meat to concentrate fat — a strategy well-documented in cold-climate and high-altitude cultures, where dietary fat is essential for maintaining body temperature and energy reserves during strenuous physical activity.
The meal before that, eaten approximately eight hours before death, also included chamois (another Alpine wild goat species) and red deer, along with what analysis suggested was a grain-based flatbread or similar processed wheat product. The pattern of two substantial meat-based meals with grain components in the hours before death is consistent with a person who was moving through the mountains with energy-dense food supplies rather than a person who was starving or in serious physical distress.