Regarding What’s the story with Otzi the gay caveman? - The Straight Dope
For what it’s worth, it actually is possible to determine age to absurd accuracy, at least with modern techniques (I don’t know if this was the case in 1992 when this article was first written). The circadian cycle affects tooth and bone growth, making it possible to determine pretty much th exact number of days something was alive - by cutting it open and counting the (microscopic) rings.
I assume “5,477-year-old Stone Age man” refers to how many years he’d been dead, not how many days he’d been alive.
I don’t believe this is true in any way. Please provide scientific papers for cites.
Wiki has a good article - it’s amazing what they’ve been able to learn about him, but his exact age, or the exact number of years since he died, are apparently not among them: Ötzi - Wikipedia
I assume you left out the *found mummified
Unless, of course, you think that *mummified *means “It’s alive!” in one way or another.
No joke. Cecil said it was absurd that they could determine an exact age (5,477 years old, clearly how long Otzi has been dead). grue countered that it’s not so absurd because teeth can tell us how many days someone had been alive. I was just pointing out that “5,477-year-old mummy” has nothing to do with how many circadian cycles his teeth had gone thru while alive.
Hmmm, I don’t buy it. I actually liked the joke, until I discovered the original sentence.
You wrongly blamed them for inaccurate wording with this
Nothing to do with circadian cycles. If you referred to them, you too, worded it poorly. I mean, to get into your joke here: Why would anyone assume that some cave dude lived for 5,000 years? 
Surely no one could have inferred that from the original texts.
Please, don’t try to wriggle out of it all by side tracking about circadian rhythms. :)
Be a good sport.
The media reported an age of the mummy: 5,477 years. It is obvious to everyone that the mummy is dead. Cecil said the age was absurdly exact. grue said age can be determined to absurd exactness, but grue was clearly referring to age in days at death, not age in years after death. So obviously grue misread the column. Circadian rhythms are not my “side track”, they are the OP of this thread that was started by grue because he misread a Straight Dope column. I am done arguing about this. Read the column, and read grue’s OP. If it’s not clear to you that the OP was due to a misread of the column, well, now I’ve explained it 3 times and I’m done.
Old joke:
A science museum guard, near retirement, takes his replacement for a tour of the museum. He points to a dinosaur’s bones and says, “That dinosaur is 68,000,027 years old.”
“Wow!” says the new guy. “How do you know its age that specifically?”
“Well,” says the old guard, “it was 68,000,000 years old when I started work here 27 years ago!”
Ok did I read the OP wrong because to me it was clear the OP was saying that nowadays(as opposed to '92) the exact age at death of a mummy can be determined. So that say Otzi could be pronounced with scientific certainty to be 35 years, 123 days and 12 hours old AT DEATH(example of course).
I don’t know if that is true, but that is what the OP claimed.
Lots of confusion to go around.
The column said:
Given that there are no other remarks about Otzi’s age except how old the mummified remains were, it sounds like Cecil was commenting on the exactness of 5,477 years, rather than the biological age that Otzi attained before death. Although “driver’s license” is somewhat ambiguous, since it typically shows one’s birthdate, and thus is typically used to determine current age.
Then grue posted his comment that circandian cycles could be used to determine age.
Thus, Rhodes made his astute comment that 5,477 refers to the age of the mummy, not the age Otzi was when he died.
kneegrow then misunderstood Rhodes, and posted his accusation that Rhodes was being deliberately misleading or something. To which Rhodes replied with his explanation. And then kneegrow failed to follow the thread.
Now if there were info about Otzi’s age at death, then knowing circadian rhythms and growth cycles on bones and teeth can be used to determine that age might be relevant. But nothing was said about Otzi’s age at death in the column.
Yes! That’s exactly what I was trying to say. Thanks Irishman.
Bumped.
Yeah, I can see why people might think he was gay:
From the linked article, all I saw was that new DNA tests showed that his darker skin was his real skin color rather than a byproduct of the mummification process.
What about the linked article made you think he was gay?
The picture. I was joking.
…what?
I have no idea what about the picture you could be referring to.
He was shirtless, and wearing leather clothes, including assless chaps.
Oh, I see. The picture was pretty blurry pn my phone so I didn’t realize that the pants were so revealing.
All chaps are assless by definition.
Even all of Bertie Wooster’s friends?!?