Ötzi the iceman snacked on 'Stone Age bacon' hours before his murder

The astonishingly well-preserved mummy of the iceman reveals that he ate local goat before he died.

Dried meat from a local wild goat was the last meal of Ötzi the iceman, before he was fatally shot with an arrow.

Detailed analysis of Ötzi's stomach contents have revealed the origin of the iceman's last meal, down to the region of present-day Italy where the goat lived.

Examination of the mummy by researchers at the EURAC Institute for Mummies and the Iceman have found that the meat that had made up Ötzi's last meal was from a goat that lived in the South Tyrol region of Italy.

"We've analysed the meat's nanostructure and it looks like he ate very fatty, dried meat, most likely bacon," German mummy expert Albert Zink said at a talk in Vienna late Wednesday.

But this diet of tough, fatty meat may not have agreed with Ötzi. The EURAC researchers previously found traces of the ulcer-inducing bacteria Helicobacter pylori, suggesting he may have suffered from gastritis or gastic ulcers.

Previous analysis of Ötzi's lower intestine had identified that he had recently eaten a meal of grains and red meat within 30 hours of his death. Pinpointing not only the type of meat he had eaten but the region the animal lived in was done through genomic analysis of the stomach contents as well as a range of non-invasive diagnostics.

otzi iceman — Ötzi the iceman ate dried goat meat hours before he died, researchers have found AFP

Ötzi died at the age of 45, stood at 5 foot 3 inches (1.60m) and weighed 50kg. He is thought to have been shot in the back with an arrow fired from some distance. This severed a major blood vessel between his shoulder blade and rib cage, the researchers said.

Previous analysis of Ötzi's remains showed that the clothes he was wearing at the time of his death were made of animal skins including goat and bear.

The 5,300-year-old mummy was discovered in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991 by two German hikers.