The world's oldest tattoos

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Highlights

  • Although tattooing has been practiced throughout human history, the precise antiquity of the practice is unknown.

  • There has been a discrepancy between popular and scholarly sources as to the identity of the oldest tattooed human remains.

  • Through reexamination of radiocarbon data we are able to identify the source of this confusion.

  • This research conclusively shows the oldest tattoos known to date belong to the Tyrolean Iceman, also known as Ötzi.

Abstract

The practice of tattooing has been documented in cultures across the globe and throughout recorded history. While there are several lines of archeological evidence through which to study ancient tattooing, the marks identified on naturally and deliberately preserved human skin provide the only direct evidence of tattooing in antiquity. Until recently there was a discrepancy regarding the identity of the oldest tattooed human remains, with popular and scholarly sources alternately awarding the honor to the Tyrolean Iceman known as Ötzi, or to an unidentified South American Chinchorro mummy. Through a reexamination of the identity of the South American specimen and the associated radiocarbon data, we are able to identify the source of this confusion, and confirm that Ötzi presents the world's oldest preserved tattoos.

Introduction

Tattooing, the practice of inscribing the skin with permanent designs and patterns, is a global and indefinably ancient practice. Historical and archeological evidence show tattooing was practiced throughout the world in antiquity, and Indigenous cultures from every continent except Antarctica included tattooing as an essential element of their cultural fabric. Both the body marks and the tattooing process acted to negotiate relationships between individuals and their society, nature, and the spiritual realm. Depending on the culture and time period, Indigenous tattoo traditions have functioned to signal entry into adulthood, reflect social status, document martial achievement, demonstrate lineage and group affiliation, and to channel and direct preternatural forces (see Krutak, 2007, Krutak, 2012, Krutak, 2014a).

Cultural contacts, exchanges, missionization, acculturation, and the formation of colonial empires had a widespread negative impact on Indigenous tattoo practices. As a consequence of these factors and the relative biases and inaccuracies of early ethnographic and ethnohistorical accounts, many Indigenous tattoo designs and practices have been forgotten, banned, or disconnected from their prior context and appropriated into modern tattoo culture. Traditional tattooing tools, pigments, and rituals that once held strong cultural values have given way to modern technologies, health regulations and the consumer marketplace.

In today's global, Westernized society tattooing has both proliferated rapidly and become less collectively regulated, if not entirely culturally unanchored. Rather than specific marks and the circumstances of their application being mandated by social codes, individuals are now largely free to select what, where, and how they are tattooed according to their own intentions. Nevertheless, there exists interest among the tattoo community in documenting and understanding the history of the practice, particularly in regard to the iconography, techniques, and origins of this ancient art.

Despite increasing scholarly and public interest in ancient tattooing over the past decade, there has been ongoing confusion regarding the identity of the oldest preserved tattoos. Popular texts and online sources typically identify the oldest tattoos as belonging to the naturally-mummified European body known as Ötzi. More scholarly sources have alternatively proposed that the oldest tattoos are found on mummified remains from the Chinchorro culture of South America. Following recent research into the identity of the Chinchorro mummy and reexamination of radiocarbon dates we are now able to identify the cause of this discrepancy and conclusively identify what are, to date, the oldest tattoos in the world.

Section snippets

Background

Although written records of tattooing date back to at least the 5th century BC in Greece (Jones, 1987, Jones, 2000), and possibly several centuries earlier in China (Reed, 2000), the actual antiquity of the practice, both on a regional basis and as a worldwide phenomenon, remain unknown. In an effort to understand the time depth associated with tattooing, scholars must instead turn to the archeological record. There are three principal lines of archeological evidence for tattooing in ancient

The identity of the Chinchorro mummy

In October of 1983, water line construction in a sandy bluff overlooking the city of Arica, Chile unexpectedly encountered multiple graves containing naturally and deliberately mummified remains from the Chinchorro culture. A total of 96 bodies were subsequently recovered from the site, known as El Morro, by staff from the University of Tarapacá's San Miguel de Azapa Archaeological Museum (Arriaza, 1995c). In the initial analysis of these remains Allison and colleagues (1984:170) identified

Radiocarbon dates

Ötzi has been the subject of extensive radiocarbon dating efforts. In addition to 14C samples from his bones and tissue (e.g., Bonani et al., 1994, Prinoth-Fornwagner and Niklaus, 1994), investigators have also processed samples from his wooden bow, pannier, ax shaft, quiver, and clothing, as well as mosses, leather, and animal hair recovered from the gully where Ötzi was entombed (Rom et al., 1999). The 14C dates for Ötzi have been extensively reported in these and other sources, and confirm

Conclusions

The radiocarbon dates discussed above clearly identify Ötzi as the oldest tattooed human remains discovered to date, antedating the Chinchorro mummy Mo-1 T28 C22 by at least 500 years. Previous scholarly misidentifications of the Chilean specimen as the oldest tattooed remains appear to be the result of misreading the radiocarbon data. Specifically, this is the result of confusing the date of 3830 ± 100 radiocarbon years BP obtained from the lung tissue of Mo-1 T28 C22 as instead presenting 3830 ± 

Acknowledgments

The authors extend their thanks to the global community of tattoo scholars that participated in the social media discussion leading to this research, including Gemma Angel, Matt Lodder, Anna Felicity Friedman, and Paul Roe. We also thank Renee Friedman for her review of the Egyptian materials and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript.

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