Seventy-five mosses and liverworts found frozen with the late Neolithic Tyrolean Iceman: Origins, taphonomy and the Iceman's last journey.

ABSTRACT: The Iceman site is unique in the bryology of the Quaternary. Only 21 bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) grow now in the immediate vicinity of the 5,300 year old Iceman discovery site at 3,210m above sea level in the Ötztal Alps, Italy. By contrast 75 or more species including at least ten liverworts were recovered as subfossils frozen in, on and around the Iceman from before, at and after his time. About two thirds of the species grow in the nival zone (above 3,000m above sea level) now while about one third do not. A large part of this third can be explained by the Iceman having both deliberately and inadvertently carried bryophytes during his last, fatal journey. Multivariate analyses (PCA, RDA) provide a variety of explanations for the arrivals of the bryophytes in the rocky hollow wher

SUBMITTER: Dickson JH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6821077 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature