The oldest mummy in Italy is 6,600 years old and lived on Monte Rosa

It is a marmot and was found by chance by the mountain guide Corrado Gaspard at 4,291 meters of the Lyskamm glacier.From tomorrow it will be revealed to the public in the Regional Museum of Natural Sciences in the Château de Saint-Pierre.

It is the oldest natural mummy in Italy and lived in the heart of Monte Rosa, at 4,291 meters above sea level, 6,600 years ago.Almost two years after its discovery, the Lyskamm marmot has found its second home in the Aosta Valley.From tomorrow it will be shown to the public in the rock room of the Efisio Noussan Regional Museum of Natural Sciences, in the castle of Saint-Pierre.

IT IS STORED IN A CABINET AT ROOM TEMPERATURE AND WITHOUT LIGHT

The small mummy - found by chance one morning in August 2022 by the mountain guide Corrado Gaspard on the east face of the Lyskamm - was welcomed into a super-technological case which will then be able to be housed for the next 500 years.The environment inside is free of oxygen, completely eco-sustainable and independent of electricity, with the possibility of calibrating the chemical-physical parameters if necessary, preventing deterioration of the animal.

RADIOCARBON DATING REVEALED THE AGE:IT IS 6,600 YEARS OLD

The discovery constitutes an important scientific opportunity for the museum.The first to be interested in the Lyskamm mummy in 2022, together with researchers from the Natural Sciences Museum, were those from the Institute for the study of mummies at Eurac Research in Bolzano, who collaborated in defining the procedures for the recovery and subsequently to ensure the conservation of the find, once brought to the museum laboratories.Again in collaboration with Eurac Research, the first data were obtained, including radiocarbon dating which dates it back to the mid-Holocene, approximately 6,600 years ago.

SCIENTISTS AT WORK IN “THE MARMOT MUMMY PROJECT”

Based on this joint work, the Valle d'Aosta Region brought together a team of archaeologists, biologists, geneticists, glaciologists, naturalists and veterinarians in 2023, under the name of "The Marmot Mummy Project".Their objective is to provide an answer to the questions raised by the discovery today and those that will continue to arise in the future.Various institutes and research bodies were involved, in addition to the Natural Sciences Museum and the Eurac Institute for the Study of Mummies, the Universities of Turin and Milan, the Montagna Sicura Foundation, the Superintendency for Cultural Heritage and Activities of the Aosta Valley, the Institute of Polar Sciences of the National Research Council (Cnr-Isp) of Messina.

IT IS PROBABLY A FEMALE.THE DNA IS SIMILAR TO THAT OF TODAY'S MARMOTS

What surprised the researchers was the state of conservation of the find which, in addition to the skeleton, also kept the fabrics and fur intact.It is probably a female who died at a young age.
The first studies on the animal's genetic profile showed that the marmots of 66 centuries ago were not that different from ours.“The DNA of the species changed little and slowly and, nevertheless, the marmot still managed to survive the ice age - explain the researchers -:an exception for the animal kingdom, since low genetic variability is often associated with a high risk of extinction, as in the case of the mountain gorilla, the Arctic polar bear and the Iberian lynx."
Of particular scientific interest is also the altitude at which the mummy was found which can provide "useful clues on the evolution of the Alpine environment and the climate - continue the researchers -.What appears dominated by glaciers today may not have been so in the past and probably will not be so in the future, given the severe climate change context we are experiencing."