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We Humans Have a Long Relationship with Tattoos
Tattoos are common in modern times, but they are not a modern practice. What’s our species' obsession with tattooing our bodies?
Sometime around the age of twelve, I developed a habit of drawing on my arms at school when I was bored (which was often), a habit that lasted through high school. Every school day, I’d come home with my arms covered in notes and doodles. So, I suppose it’s no surprise that I got my first tattoo when I turned eighteen, another seven in the years since — and at least two more planned for the future.
I know many people who hem and haw about getting a tattoo, unable to decide on anything they love enough to be on them forever. Meanwhile, getting my tattoos felt less like a decision for me than a predetermined fact. But why do we Humans do it at all? And how long have we been tattooing our bodies?
Ötzi the Tattooed Trendsetter
I’m joking; I don’t know if he was a trendsetter, but Ötzi’s remains do have the earliest evidence of tattooing. I wrote about Ötzi before, but if you missed it, Ötzi is Europe’s most famous mummy. German hikers found him in the Alps, a mountainous region boarding today’s Italy and Switzerland, in 1991.
