Unlike the Ice man of our age, this guy was not a mafia hitman, he was just a hunter, as many self-respecting dudes were at the time. But he had a problem. Arthritis!

Now considering rather lame social services and general healthcare conditions at the time, Otzi had to figure out some alternative ways to fix his little autoimmune problem. So he went to a local babe - let’s call her Bootzy – to see if she had a solution.

Now Bootzy was a herbalist of sorts, and no, not the Jamaican kind of herbalist – too cold in Alps for that – she was, as one might call it – a prehistorical nurse or a doctor or witch or medicine (wo)man.

(You guys do understand I’m making the whole Bootzy stuff up, right? But hey, never let the truth get in a way of a good story!)

Anyhow, Bootzy as her name implies did a few more jobs on the side, and being tired of men poking her constantly, she decided to do some poking of her own… Admittedly, poking was fun from time to time, and so she figured that poking Otzis painful joints with some medicinal herbs might alleviate some of the pain our Ice Man had.

So she grounded some herbs together, grabbed a sharp bone or a needle or whatever, dipped into the herbal mix and went drilling at the painful areas of Otzis legs and arms. I don’t know how Otzi felt about it at the moment, but it must have been fun – if you’re a masochist.

Now I don’t know how many of you reading this crap had a chance to play in grass as kids, but as washing powder commercial teach us, grass leaves stains on clothes. I know my mother was always thrilled when she had to wash my jeans after a day in the bushes… ok never mind that last sentence.

Grass leaves stains, and so do other herbs. In fact, most textile colors back in a day were made from plants and insects.

So as Otzi got herbs under his skin, his subdermal area got stained, and there it was… Otzi was a rebel.

57 of those stains were found on his body, aligned with acupunctural points. I’m not sure what your doctor thinks of such medical practice, but considering the amount of times Otzi did it – he was either an early SM guy or it worked.

Either way, this might give us some clue into how our young primate species figured out needle + ink + skin makes for some fine art