ExtinctZoo - Prehistoric Human Deaths That Make Stubbing Your Toe Seem Pleasurable

Episode Date: September 22, 2026

After watching this video, you'll thank your furniture for stubbing your toe!

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Death. It's something we all share in common, in the sense that one day the Grim Reaper is going to come for you, me, Billy, and everyone else. It doesn't matter how rich you are, how good genetics you may have, or how careful you act. Death will come. It is, as they say, the great equalizer. Although, that being said, not all deaths are really equal when you think about it. As while we can hope for it to be quick and painless, sometimes the exact opposite happens.

It can be brutally painful, slow, and, in some cases, both. And this has always been a scary story, as is so clearly demonstrated by prehistory, with researchers over time having found a staggering amount of humans who have died in straight up horrific manners. I mean, in fact, that was essentially the whole trend during an entire period of our history, the Neolithic. However, once in a while, there will be a specimen uncovered that demonstrates such hardships in their final moments that they make every other specimen look pretty much PG-rated.

makes stepping on a Lego sound like going to heaven. And one of the most striking examples of this is none other than our old friend, Erzi the Iceman. You may have heard of his name before, due to his popularity, but you probably didn't know how truly hard life was for, Erzzi, a man who died in 3,230 BC, within the Erzal Alps, a mountainous region that extends between Austria's and Italy's border. He is, for now, Europe's oldest known natural mummy, having been brilliantly preserved by the mountain's freezing temperatures and leading to great interest when he was first discovered back in 1991. Yet, at the start, no one really grasped how old the specimen truly was. As the mountaineers who discovered him and the authorities just

believed they had found a deceased climber who had died from exposure while trekking, and it wasn't until they actually removed Artsy and discovered a trove of strange tools, including a copper axe, a chert dagger, and arrowheads, among other things, that they realized something was up. And their suspicions were confirmed after tissue sampling showed that this dude was seriously old, as in over 5,000 years old. Though for a while, the idea was that exposure was what killed Erzzi. But we now know that isn't the case. And in fact, the real cause was a lot more sinister.

However, before we get to what killed him, it was clear from early examinations that Erzzi in general had suffered quite a lot throughout his life. He's believed to have been around 46 at the time of his death. And let's just say, those 46 years were not easy ones, with imaging showing a plethora of ailments. For starters, his intestines were riddled with a parasitic worm, trichyrus trichyura, also known as whipworm, a parasite that is still found around the world today, largely in tropical areas, and can cause

serious symptoms if the affliction is severe, possibly leading to dysentery, anemia, and even rectal prolapses. In warning, do not Google that. At the same time, he was also found to have H. Pylori, another relevant pathogen, this time of bacteria, that, while common, can also cause a variety of gastrointestinal issues. And while it does appear that he had the HP Asia 2 strain, which can be asymptomatic, it's possible that it also caused him to suffer from abdominal pain, bloating, vomiting, and weight loss. His fingernails also had what are known as bollines,

indicating he had previously been quite sick on three separate occasions in his final months, while then his lungs were literally black with soot, something that might have occurred by frequent closeness with open fires. And as if this wasn't enough, he had a set of broken ribs, was lactose incollerant, which I'm sure is horrible, I mean, no ice cream, and had extremely poor oral hygiene, with catastrophic cavities riddling his teeth, possibly due to his high grain and high carb diet, and also plausibly because of no toothbrushes and toothpaste. And yet, even with all of these things considered, this is not what killed him.

This was just his baseline, so to say. And so clearly he was one tough dude, yet the cause of his death ultimately still broke him. For a long time, the cause of his demise was a mystery, just chalked up to death by, misadventure, let's say. But then about 10 years after he was found, a major discovery was made. He had been shot by an arrow. Specifically, the CT scan found a flint arrow head buried within his left shoulder, positioned right beneath the shoulder blade and penetrating into his rib cage. It was seemingly fired from behind him and would have entered through his left arm before becoming embedded in his shoulder, causing massive nerve damage, possibly partial paralysis, and creating

a lesion to a subclavian artery, a major artery that would have led to massive blood loss. But still, in the years since this discovery, many have begun to believe he did not die instantly from this shot. Instead believing, he clung onto life as long as he could, and that death for him was prolonged suffering for hours, until Erzzi finally succumbed to his wounds. The question is, though, why would someone shoot him? Now, there are many theories on this, from a comrade betraying him in a storm, to a fight with a rival group who then pursued him, which would explain why he was so high up in the mountains, trying to get away from his would-be killers. but really this question has only gotten more muddied as we've learned more about him.

Because as this though turns out, he didn't just have an arrow wound. In fact, he had two more major physical injuries, one being bruises and deep cuts to his hand, with one cut being literally deep enough to slice down to his bone, well then also more importantly, he had a traumatic brain injury, suggesting something or someone had balked him on the head. And let me tell you, this was no love tap either. As researchers have found proteins in his head area,

indicating major blood clots had formed after the strike. Yet, no one is sure if the injury came from him falling and smacking his head after being shot, or if it was his assailants that had whacked him once he was down, to ensure he wouldn't make a recovery, let's say. In either case, though, it clearly sucked for Oatsy. And regarding his hand injury, that has actually turned out to be a few days old, happening at least two days before his death, leading to a new idea that he had gotten to a fight with his eventual killers days prior

and had then fled, before ultimately being tracked down and struck with an arrow that would eventually kill him. So why or who killed them does remain quite delusive, but I think we can all agree that Erzzi it ultimately went through the gauntless of suckiness before finally dying. Pretty rough. But do you know what isn't rough and is actually hopefully a pleasant experience? Checking out our Patreon. Yep, we are expanding outside of YouTube,

and I really think we are offering some really cool stuff. I mean, just check out this post you can get. Like, come on. And there are other very cool benefits as well, plus we plan to add more cool things as this grows. So please consider heading over there at least to check it out. Well, after this video, that is. And now, back to our boy, Erzzi. And really, the only silver lining I can say about Erzzi is that he did have a relatively long life for the time.

Reaching 48, when life expectancies back then were no longer than 28, meaning a chunk of you, my dear friends, would already be considered wise old individuals back then. And such seemingly short lifespans were not exclusive to the copper age. If you go back farther, it remains low. And as such, it's not a surprise that sometimes the prehistoric human's suffering are, sadly, pretty young. Take the Prince, or the Prince, for example, a Paleolithic human found within the Arena Candide Cave in Italy, which dates back some 27,000 years. Researchers first found this skeleton in the 1940s, and quickly dubbed it the Prince for its luxurious grave, with multiple tools and a headdress being buried with him.

Yet, this wasn't some renowned elder or mature chieftain, but rather a boy, who was no more than 16 years old when he died a very vicious death. As like Erzzi, he was attacked, but this time not by a human, but instead a powerful animal. His jawbone had been chewed up and literally torn in two. His shoulders covered in deep cuts, and half of his clavicle had been violently removed.

Furthermore, his neck and skull were fractured, and there were claw marks on his head, with his ankles also having been bored through with vicious bites. All signs that a horrifyingly painful and brutal mauling had taken place, leaving the teenager with mortal wounds. But that begs the question of, what could have done something like this to a seemingly otherwise healthy and fit young man? And this is a bit of a mystery, as the wounds seemed too explosive and powerful for having come from any canine known to the area.

However, a large cat, like the Eurasian Cave Lion, would have been capable of such devastation, being the size of a modern lion, and being equipped with extremely robust and powerful limbs, claws, and obviously a nasty bite. Although that said, the problem with this hypothesis is that the wound patterns don't necessarily line up with having come from a cat. And thus, it was just this year that a new analysis concluded that it was another kind of animal, not a cat or a canine. And instead, what was responsible for this gruesome mess was a bear. At the time, two bears were known to inhabit the area in which the body was found.

Ursus Arctose, or the brown bear, which still lives on today, and Earth. If you want a $3,000 a month payday for life, what would you feel free to do? Maybe take a long weekend, every weekend, or try a bunch of new hobbies. Would you feel free to upgrade and listen ad-free? Don't worry, we get it. Every $20 ticket could win you $3,000 a month for life and supports life-saving cancer research at the Princess Margaret. Feel free to buy your payday for life ticket today.

Raffle number RAF 157-3916. Please play responsibly. Cispellius, the cave bear, the now extinct species that was quite successful at the time, and could be extremely large, outsizing even the Eurasian brown bear. And since both of these carnivorans were more than capable of inflicting the devastating injuries observed, we aren't sure which species was truly responsible. What's shocking, though, and a bit grisly as well, is that despite the extent of these injuries, it seems that the young teen did not die.

quickly. In fact, it's not that he lingered on in a sense for multiple days, with some of his injuries showing signs that they even started to heal, like bones partially were growing. Now, make no mistakes. During this time, he would not have been walking around or looking for help. Instead, he was either in a state of debilitating pain and agony, only capable of writhing around, or he lost consciousness in the attack and came to only briefly in his final days, ending up drifting back into a consciousness, back and forth, again and again. Now, what the prolonged survival tells us is that in the attack vital organs and major arteries were somehow spared. And it was only after some time that multiple organ failure, infection, or slow internal bleeding

finally killed him. And the fact that the bear never finished him off or tried to eat him also indicates that the poor lad was not a victim of a predation attack, or at least that it wasn't able to finish it, and more likely that the bear saw him as a threat that needed to be neutralized. Which makes sense seeing that during the Paleolithic, people were somewhat commonly hunting bears. And while we don't know if the bear that mauled him was one that was one that was a little he was trying to hunt, researchers do believe that the attack occurred while the teenager was out

on a hunting excursion and was probably still a rookie-level hunter learning the ropes, who also didn't know that this would be his last expedition. Definitely a tragic tale for a young individual, no doubt, who today would only just be starting his life. And though it doesn't really change the mood of the story, it is comforting to know that he wasn't alone in these final moments, as his body showed signs of having immediate care after the attack, care that he would 100% not have been able to give to himself. And thus it's been concluded that he must have been part of a hunting party that witnessed the attack and try to save his life afterwards, staying with him until the very end, which would also explain his detailed burial within the cave, which would remain untouched

for over 27,000 years. Now, a bear attack can still occur to someone in today's world, but the circumstances of living in the Paleolithic definitely was the reason why the juvenile ultimately died and experienced what he did. Whereas today, he probably would have survived even with those gruesome injuries with immediate adequate medical care. And we see this in other cases too, painful demises that might not have gone down how they did in the modern world. And one area that is very relevant to this is when it comes to disease. Modern medicine is without a doubt a miracle. And the past is pretty clear on this. As back then people suffered and ultimately died from ailments can now be mostly managed with care. And one pretty brutal case of this has to do with

Monbach, a location south of Hanoi where expeditions found the remains of Neolithic humans on a plateau. There were multiple bodies buried in this location that were associated with a fung Nuiang culture, but it was one site in particular, a burial plot now known as Burial Nine, that fascinated scientists the most, as the person lying within this grave was an exceptionally poor condition, being visibly crippled, severely hunched, and twisted. It was immediately clear before any studies were even conducted that they had found an individual who had experienced an immensely debilitating disease in life, that likely left him paralyzed from the waist down and with extremely limited arm and neck movement by the time he was an adolescent.

After excavating the skeleton and taking a more thorough look, they deduced that the person, a young man, had been inflicted with a rare disease known as clippofile syndrome, a pretty rare and painful genetic disease that fuses the spinal bones together and can create severe life-threatening complications like neurological injury, spinal cord damage, or fatal cardiopulmonary failure from increased pressure.

It can still be a major disease to this day, depending on severity, and affects about 1,000 and 40,000 people, possibly more, with some well-known people even having it, such as Big Ed from 90-day fiancé, which is the actual reason why it appears to have a shorter neck than the average person. And though it is absolutely no joke, modern medicine has come a long way in treating it, with the prognosis being pretty close to normal when it's detected early, and even in bad cases, surgery is an option.

4,000 years ago, though, when our man in Burial 9 was alive, completely different story. Then, back then, there was nothing you could do, only slowly wither away. And we see this in the skeleton, it's his bones continue to fuse over time. time and eventually he died from the disease. The thing is though he didn't die immediately or even after he became paralyzed in his adolescence. Instead it seems he lived into his 20s, meaning about a decade or so after the condition first made him disabled, meaning a lot of suffering. But it also meant that his community gave him expert long-term care, as they would have needed to constantly move him

around to prevent bed sores, help him with potential UTIs, gas or problems, and even perhaps process his food for him, with his condition being so severe that he might not have been able to properly chew. On top of all of this, they would have needed to monitor his intense pain that he experienced as well, which seems to have worsened after he developed torticalis, a condition where his head was forced to tilt to the right due to tightening and spasming neck muscles, which I'm sure you would know would be incredibly horrible to live with. So obviously, this guy had one tough life. And what's truly tragic is that for most of it, all he could do was likely be curled up in a fetal position, where the world just passing on around him while he suffered quietly. And similar to the last

example, the one uplifting piece of information here is that it does seem pretty clearly that his community deeply cared for him, seeing that he would be unable to help out in any meaningful way, and yet they still gave him an amazing level of care that extended his life for over 10 years, a miracle in itself for the time and a testament for their love for him. And for this story and the others I've told, another quote-unquote nice aspect about them is that there is some closure to as far as what went down. In other words, at least we have a general idea on what happened. Because sometimes all we have is a nasty death and no clear answers. And you can see this in an Egyptian specimen that might as well be the inspiration and cover for a horror movie.

A specimen named the Screaming Lady. This eerie skeleton came out of ancient Egypt, first being uncovered in 1935 within Dyer al-Bahari and dated back to over 3,500 years ago during the new kingdom era of ancient Egypt, the same to which King Tut belonged to. This body of a well-preserved mummified woman was explicitly found in a tomb next to that of a powerful and famed ancient Egyptian architect, suggesting she might have been a close family member of his. Researchers noted that she was likely around 48 when she had died, stood at about 5 feet or 1.5 meters tall, was missing a fair share of her teeth, and showed signs of having suffered from a mild form of arthritis in her later days. But none of this compared to what really caught their attention, which was her mouth, as opposed to most mummies who mouths were typically closed by her. by the embalmers, hers was wide open, and that is putting it lightly, as it was really

contorted and twisted up into a ghoulish-looking scream, hence her name. And the messed up part is that many scientists actually think this is what she'd been doing right before her death, screaming, suggesting she went out in a pretty bad and painful way. Some speculate she might have suffered from what is known as a cadaveric spasm, a phenomenon which occurs on the body, or rather muscles, rapidly stiffens right at the moment of death, proceeding Rigormortis and unlike Rigormortis cannot be easily undone. And this phenomena is still seen today and usually happens under extreme physical and emotional stress, such as when someone dies via combustion or drowning. Only thing is though our mummy in question bears no clear signs of what killed

her, only leaving us with signs of an agonizing death and an ancient mystery. And it's particularly hard to know because all of our organs, except for her heart, had been removed during the mummification process. So it could have been something that happened to one of her organs, like blood flow that was blocked her small intestine which can cause intense pain or ruptured aneurism. Yet, again, without our insides being there, we have no way of telling what actually went down. One of potential explanation, though, is that she might have experienced a massive heart attack, during which she was aware long enough to experience considerable discomfort, let's say, and also have time to perhaps scream out for help. Another equally, if not more gruesome

explanation is that it wasn't necessarily pain that cause her to involuntarily scream, but rather extreme fear, which is also known to be able to cause this kind of cadaveric spasm. So perhaps potentially someone had killed her, except without leaving any obvious marks, that it would be preserved during ramification. And if this was the case, that she had been killed by someone, it's just one more example that often the most brutal deaths one can experience comes from our own hands. Yeah, thanks for watching. You might want to go touch some grass right about now. And until next time on Extamed Zoo.