John Hawks points to a report in Science on some morsels of information about Ötzi-the-Iceman’s genetics, The Iceman’s Last Meal:
Also at the meeting, researchers led by geneticist Angela Graefen of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman reported that they have succeeded in sequencing the Iceman’s whole genome, despite the highly fragmented nuclear DNA. The genome has already revealed some surprises. One preliminary finding shows that the Iceman probably had brown eyes rather than the blue eyes found in many facial reconstructions done by artists. Graefen and her colleagues are also examining the DNA to see if Ötzi possessed genetic predispositions to diseases such as arthritis, which other researchers have diagnosed based on radiological and other evidence.
I’m assuming we’ll know a whole lot more before the end of summer. So I’m going to go out on a limb and make a prediction based on what I suspect about the southern European genetic landscape ~5,000 years ago: Ötzi will be more like contemporary West Asian people, Georgians, Armenians, etc., than modern north Italians and south Germans are. Right or wrong, I hope the results will be interesting!