Reprinted w/o permission from "In", a weekly Boston gay bar rag.
As Brian Gollum likes to say in his signature: "Se non e vero,
e ben trovato."

Otztal Valley, ITALY -- The mainstream media reported widely on "Otzi",
the 5,477-year-old Stone Age man found mummified in a melting glacier
high in the Italian Tyrolean Alps.  The U.S. media did not, however, share
a gripping detail that was reported in Italy, Austria, Switzerland and
elsewhere: there was sperm in Otzi's anal canal.

"The Tyrolean scholars have not given this little detail any special
significance," according to _Lambda Nachrichten_, the magazine of
Homosexual Initiative Vienna, Austria's leading gay organization,
"but there can only be one explanation: Otzi had sex with another man
in the Alps!"

"The tight-assed Tyrolean scholars were very uncomfortable even having
to acknowledge it," _Lambda_ said, "but Otzi is the first known homosexual
man that enjoyed being fucked. ...Otzi was the passive partner--of this
there is absolutely no doubt...The sperm has been carbon-dated."

Otzi, named for the Otztal Valley on the Italian/Austrian border, was
found intact from the day he possibly froze to death in a flash snowstorm,
in 3485 B.C.  He was discovered by hikers.

Aged 25-35, Otzi was probably a herdsman from a nearby valley settlement.
He was carrying a copper ax, a quiver and arrows, a dagger with a flint blade,
a woven grass sheath, and a wooden backpack frame, among other things.

He had tattoos on his back.  His only jewelry was a small stone disk with thin
leather strips pulled through it, knotted at the top and free at the bottom.
His clothes were leather.

According to the Zurich, Switzerland, newspaper _Blick_: "Since the homosexual
innuendo has made the rounds, polititians in the North and South Tyrol regions
suddenly have less interest in poor Otzi.  Even the souvenir business has
dropped off.  And in Otztal they're afraid they're going to end up being
called 'Homo Valley'."

-- 
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer