5,000-Year-Old Copper Ax Found in Switzerland

ZUG-RIEDMATT, SWITZERLAND—According to a report in Live Science, a copper ax similar to the one carried by Özti the Iceman some 5,000 years ago has been found at the northern foot of the Alps, where prehistoric villages were built on wooden stilts. “It was a very efficient general-purpose ax, especially proper for woodworking,” said Gishan Schaeren of the Canton of Zug’s Office for Monuments and Archaeology. Chemical analysis of the lead in the blade linked the metal to the same source in southern Tuscany used to produce the larger, heavier blade carried by Özti. But it had been thought that people living to the north and south of the Alps did not have much contact. Schaeren disagrees. He thinks the people who traveled the Alps during the Copper Age probably had extensive knowledge of the landscape and its natural resources. “It is one step to a much more connected worldview,” he said. For more, go to “Ötzi’s Sartorial Splendor.”