Oldest tattooing artefact discovered | Page 2 | Daily News

Oldest tattooing artefact discovered

Archaeologists have recently discovered the oldest tattooing artefact which is around 2,000 years old. With a handle of skunkbush and a cactus-spine business end, the tool was made around 2,000 years ago by the Ancestral Pueblo people of the Basketmaker II period in what is now south-eastern Utah.

Andrew Gillreath Brown, an anthropology PhD candidate, chanced upon the pen-sized instrument while taking an inventory of archaeological materials that had been sitting in storage for more than 40 years.

The tool consists of a 3 ½ inch wooden skunkbush sumac handle bound at the end with split yucca leaves and holding two parallel cactus spines, stained black at their tips. The findings were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

His discovery pushes back the earliest evidence of tattooing in western North America by more than a millennium and gives scientists a rare glimpse into the lives of a prehistoric people whose customs and culture have largely been forgotten.

"Tattooing by prehistoric people in the South-west is not talked about much because there has not ever been any direct evidence to substantiate it. This tattoo tool provides us information about past South-western culture we did not know before," said Gillreath Brown.

Tattooing is an art form and mode of expression common to many indigenous cultures worldwide. However, little is known about when or why the practice began. This is especially the case in places like the south-western United States, where no tattoos have been identified on preserved human remains and there are no ancient written accounts of the practice.

"When I first pulled it out of the museum box and realized what it might have been I got really excited," said Gillreath Brown, who himself wears a large sleeve tattoo of a turtle shell rattle, mastodon, water, and forest on his left arm.

"The residue staining from tattoo pigments on the tip was what immediately piqued my interest as being possibly a tattoo tool," Gillreath Brown said. Encouraged by Aaron Deter Wolf, a friend and co-author of the study who had done ancient tattooing and edited several books on the subject, Gillreath Brown analyzed the tips with a scanning electron microscope, X-ray fluorescence and energy dispersive ray spectroscopy.

ANI


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