The story is set in central Europe 5300 years ago from the northern alps of Italy, to the eastern lands along the Danube River, and to Vinca, the earliest European Bronze Age civilization. Otzi is the chieftain of a south Tyrollean late stone age tribe scrounging for a living in the high alps. To support his village he travels by foot to trade with the people on the north side of the mountains. He returns to his village after a long trip with a backpack full of goods, but his wife Mara tells him that their wheat field has failed.

As a youth he took a trip down the Danube to Vincan lands where he met his father’s brother and family who prospered raising goats, farming, and hunting. There he met his first wife, and had to join the hunt for huge wild bison to earn the right to marry her. Before he left for home, a Vincan metal smith told him the secret of smelting copper, and was given a few small copper ore stones to help him find more. He brought his bride back up the Danube but she died during the birth of his son Anise.

Desperate to find a way to support his family after the failed wheat crop, he searches the neighborhood for copper ore but finds none. A northerner agrees to go south to get copper ore from Tuscany in trade for goats. With the good ore he is able to make a copper ax, but copper has never been seen before. He is condemned for using evil knowledge to make copper by the shaman and the villagers, and must fight for his life.