USA Today is reporting that new DNA tests seem to indicate that Otzi, the Neolithic hunter whose body was found in the Alps twelve years ago, killed at least two people before he was brought down:

In 2001, an Italian radiologist found an arrowhead embedded in Otzi’s shoulder. Otzi had been hit from behind and managed to pull out only the shaft. That discovery led Eduard Egarter, Bolanzo’s chief medical examiner and curator of Otzi’s body, to look for more evidence of a fight.

Alois Pirpamer, one of the climbers who found Otzi, told Egarter that the Iceman had been clutching a knife in his right hand at the time of the discovery. The knife came loose when the body was pulled from the ice. . . .

Egarter matched the knife to the hand and found a deep gash on the hand that had been missed in previous studies. He then found another cut on the left hand and bruises on the torso, as if Otzi had been beaten. . . . Blood from one person was found on the back of Otzi’s cloak, and blood from two people was found on the same arrow in his quiver. More blood was on the knife.

Quilici says the team suspects blood on the back of the cloak may have come from a wounded colleague that Otzi was carrying over his shoulder. Loy says blood of two people was found on the same arrow, suggesting Otzi killed both men and retrieved the arrow.

The newspaper is reporting it as “‘Iceman’ was murdered,” which I think is an interesting jump to conclusions. (Of course, this is USA Today we’re talking about.) The new findings don’t seem to tell us anything new about how Otzi actually died; just a little more about his last days. It’s clear that he was shot, and it may have been that wound that eventually killed him; but the physical evidence doesn’t tell us who shot first, or why.

Still, until we find the other guys, it’s hard not to sympathize with Otzi. Dying alone and on the run in the Alps in 5300 BC — man, that’s a hard way to go.