Otzi carried 14 arrows in his quiver, but only two had arrowheads and feather fletching. Photo courtesy of the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology/H. Wisthaler Ötzi the Iceman never had a chance to take ...

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Six of the arrows have been fletched with rough-legged hawk feathers, and one has goose feather fletching. Five arrows have bone or antler arrowheads, and of those, four have barbs along one edge.

To get the desired effect of an arrow – something pointy stuck into someone that you don’t like – all you need is a pointed stick and something to launch it. So what are all those feathers doing on ...