The world's oldest snowshoe,
recently found on a glacier between Austria and Italy and seen
as belonging to "the grandaddy" of Italy's famous prehistoric
Iceman hunter Oetzi, was presented at a press conference in
Bolzano Monday.
"This exceptional archaeological finds bears witness to the
presence of man on the high-mountain Alpine passes already 5,800
years ago," scientists said.
Simone Bartolini, a cartographer from the Military
Geographical Institute in Florence, found the artefact on the
Gurgler Eisjoch glacier in the val Senales as he was charting
the border between Italy and Austria.
Carbon dating says the snowshoe was made in the late
Neolithic age, between 3,800 and 3,700 BC, meaning that it
"belonged to the grandad of Oetzi", researchers said, referring
to the famed Iceman hunter who died in about 3,200 BC a few
kilometres away.
Oetzi is the world's oldest wet mummy.
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