Alpine Inhabitants and Ötzi: Insights into Historical Life
The Men of the Alps
The Alps have been inhabited since the Neolithic period, or “New Stone Age,” by populations referred to by different names by scholars: Illyrians, Ligurians, Reti. These peoples based their subsistence economy on livestock farming. One of the most significant testimonies of life in the Alps comes from Ötzi, the Similaun Man, the mummy discovered in the ice in 1991 and dated to 5,300 years ago.