The Cell's Memory, a Murder 5300 Years Ago and HPV's Silent Testimony: Ötzi the Iceman

For centuries, skeletons were the only place we looked for evidence of cancer, and bones often took the secrets of soft tissues to the grave. Science treated what it could not see as "nonexistent." Until the ice melted and brought humanity's oldest companions before us at the molecular level.

Today, to understand the roots of oncology, we look not to the Industrial Revolution but to the frozen cells of a man who took his last breath in the Alps 5300 years ago, Ötzi the Iceman .

A Mistake in the Ice: "An Ordinary Mountaineer's Murder"

The date was 19 September 1991. Two German tourists, Helmut and Erika Simon, strayed from their route in the Ötztal Alps on the Austrian–Italian border. At an altitude of 3210 metres, they noticed a brownish patch among the melting glaciers. As they approached, they saw that it was a frozen body lying face down.

When the body was taken to a morgue in Innsbruck, the truth slowly began to emerge. Beside the man lay not modern mountaineering equipment, but leather clothing, unfinished arrows, birchwood containers and, most importantly, an axe made of pure copper . When archaeologist Konrad Spindler saw that axe, he announced the startling truth: "This man is at least 4000 years old!"

The body they had mistaken for a modern murder victim was actually a Chalcolithic hunter from 5300 years ago, killed around 3300 BC by an arrow shot into his back. And although the scientific world did not yet realize it, Ötzi was not merely a murder victim; carrying the ancient origins of cancer in his stomach and cells, he was a perfect "molecular time capsule".

The Time Bomb in Ötzi's Stomach

Thanks to advances in ancient DNA (aDNA) sequencing technologies, researchers managed to look beyond Ötzi's bones into his soft tissues and even inside his stomach. Samples taken from his stomach showed that he carried Helicobacter pylori , the strongest known biological trigger of stomach cancer (gastric adenocarcinoma).

In short, had Ötzi not died violently that day from an arrow lodged in his back, his risk of developing stomach cancer later in life because of this highly virulent bacterium would have been enormous.

A Companion of 45000 Years: HPV16

Research on Ötzi continued without end. With the development of next-generation sequencing technologies (NGS), studies published in 2025 and 2026 revealed a much deeper viral oncogenic burden: the main culprit behind cervical and head-and-neck (oropharyngeal) cancers, Human Papillomavirus 16 (HPV16).

The discovery of Ust'-Ishim in Siberia and Ötzi in the Alps prove that oncogenic (cancer-causing) viruses were already migrating with modern humans during their intercontinental spread in the Paleolithic era. These data challenge the hypothesis that HPV16 reached modern humans only through interbreeding with Neanderthals, showing it to be an "original" infection as old as human history.

Cancer: An Ancient Battle in the Cell Cycle

Human history is not merely the history of wars fought with swords or arrows. It is also the history of a microscopic struggle against viruses and bacteria that manipulate the cell cycle and drive their host toward cancer. Cancer risk is deeply connected not only to factory chimneys, but also to these "silent ancient witnesses" that have coevolved with our genome and microbiome for thousands of years.