title: A whole mitochondria analysis of the Tyrolean Iceman's leather provides insights into the animal sources of Copper Age clothing.
abstract: The attire of the Tyrolean Iceman, a 5,300-year-old natural mummy from the Ötzal Italian Alps, provides a surviving example of ancient manufacturing technologies. Research into his garments has however, been limited by ambiguity surrounding their source species. Here we present a targeted enrichment and sequencing of full mitochondrial genomes sampled from his clothes and quiver, which elucidates the species of production for nine fragments. Results indicate that the majority of the samples originate from domestic ungulate species (cattle, sheep and goat), whose recovered haplogroups are now at high frequency in today's domestic populations. Intriguingly, the hat and quiver samples were produced from wild species, brown bear and roe deer respectively. Combined, these results suggest that Copper Age populations made considered choices of clothing material from both the wild and domestic populations available to them. Moreover, these results show the potential for the recovery of complete mitochondrial genomes from degraded prehistoric artefacts.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Mummies and the Iceman, EURAC research, 39100 Bolzano, Italy.|School of Archaeology and Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
authors.forename: Niall J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: O'Sullivan
authors.affiliation: Smurfit Institute of Genetics, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
authors.forename: Matthew D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Teasdale
authors.affiliation: Smurfit Institute of Genetics, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
authors.forename: Valeria
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Mattiangeli
authors.affiliation: Institute for Mummies and the Iceman, EURAC research, 39100 Bolzano, Italy.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Maixner
authors.affiliation: School of Archaeology and Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
authors.forename: Ron
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pinhasi
authors.affiliation: Smurfit Institute of Genetics, University of Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.
authors.forename: Daniel G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Bradley
authors.affiliation: Institute for Mummies and the Iceman, EURAC research, 39100 Bolzano, Italy.
authors.forename: Albert
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zink
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000829:Animals, Domestic / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D000835:Animals, Wild / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D002417:Cattle; D003020:Clothing; D003670:Deer; D054629:Genome, Mitochondrial; D006041:Goats; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000235:genetics*; D009106:Mummies; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA / Q000379:methods*; D012756:Sheep; D001503:Ursidae; D000073336:Whole Genome Sequencing / Q000379:methods*