ABSTRACT
This was not an isolated incident however; prehistoric mummies with tattoos have also been found in Siberia, Peru, and Chile (5-7), and evidence of the ancient art of tattooing has been traced as far back as the Stone Age (12,000 BCE) (8). Primitive humans slashed their skin during bereavement ceremonies and rubbed ash (and conceivably the ashes of the deceased) into the cuts as a sign of grief and to possibly create a permanent reminder of their ancestors. Decorative tattooing has also been linked to the Bronze Age (8000 BCE) by the circumstantial evidence of crude needles and pigment bowls found in caves in France, Spain, and Portugal (9). People of this age decorated animal skins worn for warmth with ocher and plant pigments, and this may have eventually evolved into the decorative tattooing of their own skin as mummies dating from 4000 BCE have shown evidence of crude tattoos (10).
