Flint, Bone, and Thorns: Using Ethnohistorical Data, Experimental Archaeology, and Microscopy to Examine Ancient Tattooing in Eastern North America (original) (raw)
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Needle in a Haystack: Examining the Archaeological Evidence for Prehistoric Tattooing
"Drawing with Great Needles: Ancient Tattoo Traditions of North America," edited by A. Deter-Wolf and C. Diaz-Granados, 2013
European explorers and settlers who traveled throughout the Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains beginning in the sixteenth century left behind both textual and visual documentation of their journeys and of the people they encountered. The specific geographic areas and indigenous groups documented in the ethnohistorical record vary widely. However, one consistent aspect of these accounts is the description of permanent patterns and colors inscribed on the flesh of various Native American groups who interacted with the European chroniclers. It is unlikely that the indigenous tattoo traditions documented throughout the Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands beginning in the sixteenth century were recent cultural innovations. However, after more than a century of scientific archaeology very little is known about the origins or material culture of prehistoric tattooing in the study area. The introduction of European metal needles as trade items quickly replaced indigenous technology and thereby permanently altered traditional tattooing practices. To date archaeologists have seldom attempted to identify the artifact remains of prehistoric Native American tattooing, and the actual antiquity of the practice both in the study area and in the continental United States remains unclear. In this chapter I combine ethnohistorical sources and archaeological evidence to examine the material culture of prehistoric tattooing in the Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands. I begin with a discussion of the antiquity of tattooing in the region. Next, ethnohistorical and ethnographic sources are examined to identify descriptions of indigenous tattoo pigments and tools. That textual evidence is then compared to archaeological data from the region including rare formal identifications of prehistoric tattoo needles in an effort to recognize potential correlates. Finally, I discuss associations and context useful for identifying tattoo implements in the archaeological record.
Ancient Native American bone tattooing tools and pigments: Evidence from central Tennessee
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2021
Analyses of archaeological bone tool assemblages from the southeastern United States rely principally on morphological classification systems to delineate typologies and infer artifact function. Under these systems the actual purpose of pointed bone artifacts generically classified as “awls” is frequently overlooked. In this study we move beyond basic morphological classification by combining zooarchaeological analysis, technological assessment, use-wear analysis, and materials science studies to examine an assemblage of bone tools from an ancient Native American site in central Tennessee. Our analysis reveals that approximately 3500–1600 BCE, occupants of the Fernvale site employed sharpened turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) bone tools as tattooing implements, and that both red and black pigment remains are directly associated with these artifacts. These materials comprise the earliest directly-identified tattooing tools to date, and demonstrate the persistence of Native American tattooing in southeastern North America over at least three millennia.
Tattoo Bundles as Archaeological Correlates for Ancient Body Ritual in Eastern North America
Shaman, Priest, Practice, Belief: Materials of Ritual and Religion in Eastern North America, 2019
Ancient Native American tattooing presents an interpretive dilemma, in which archaeologists are faced with the presence of a widespread and highly-significant cultural practice to which existing artifact typologies --and therefore our interpretive framework for understanding ancient ritual and regalia-- have been overwhelmingly blind. This work builds on previous examinations of bundle traditions from the eastern Great Plains in order to focus on tattoo bundles as a material assemblage, the constituent parts of which may be identified in archaeological settings. Applying this model to the archaeological record of the American Southeast allows a case to be made that Native American tattooing extends to at least ca. 3300 BC, by which time it was already connected with bundle traditions. You may also download an annotated PDF of this chapter here: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/environment/archaeology/documents/staffpubs/arch\_Deter-Wolf%20and%20Peres%202019.pdf
(Abridged) Tattooing across the Great Plains provided a ritual means by which to enhance one’s status and access to supernatural power. This spiritual energy was embodied in specific forms of corporeal iconography, the human bodies that absorbed it, and especially the tattooing bundles from which such designs were created. Because these ancestral toolkits served as the primary repository for the transfer of sacred power, this chapter will examine the properties, significance, and use of tattooing bundles with specific reference to traditional Eastern Plains religion and society through an exploratory narrative based on studies of associative material culture and ethnographic sources. My focus on this geographical region of the plains is guided by necessity, since it is here that we find the most detailed records of tattooing preserved in long-neglected published and unpublished sources. Through describing this largely understudied world of material and visual culture, I seek to expand not only our knowledge of traditional tattooing instruments from the plains but also indigenous body art and the belief systems that inspired it.
Needles and Bodies: A Microwear Analysis of Experimental Bone Tattooing Instruments
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2018
Tattoos can be conceptualized as embodied experiences, ideas, and meanings expressed by groups and individuals. In Northeastern North America, many Iroquoian nations from the Contact period were known for practicing body transformations of this sort. Moreover, the archaeological literature abounds with cases of Iroquoian bone objects interpreted as tattooing implements. However, such functional interpretations are often proposed without any clear and thorough demonstration, and thus may be misleading. This paper presents the conclusive results of an experimental microwear analysis of replicated bone tattooing needles. They allow to access and investigate the social dimensions of tattooing practices in the past, as is illustrated with an example from St. Lawrence Iroquoians.
Ancient Andean Tattooing: New Perspectives from North American Museum Collections
The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Body Modification, 2024
Since the late nineteenth century, numerous tattoos have been identified on mummified human remains from archaeological sites in the coastal deserts of Perú and Chile. In this chapter we examine ancient Andean tattooing practices via an analysis of mummified human remains housed in the collections of four museums in the United States: the Arizona State Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Harvard Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, and the Milwaukee Public Museum. Through documentation of those examples, comparison with published studies, and a reassessment of ethnographic, historical, and archaeological data, we address the evidence for techniques, pigments, and shared iconographic themes from Pre-Columbian tattooing traditions of the region. In addition to sharing previously-unpublished examples of tattooed Andean mummies, this effort provides a foundation for future scholarly documentation and study of ancient tattooing practices in western South America.
Although tattoos have been observed on mummies dated to over 5000 years old, the generally poor preservation of human remains makes it difficult to use this type of adornment to understand how inscriptions on the body have been used to define self and social ascriptions. A potential method for detecting tattooing is to identify the tools used to make the markings. To assist recognition of tattooing tools, an extensive set of experiments was conducted in which retouched obsidian flakes bearing various pigments were used to pierce pig skin. Diagnostic use wear and residues associated with tattooing were identified. To illustrate the value of these results, traces preserved on a highly recognizable class of obsidian retouched artefacts from the Nanggu site (SE-SZ-8) in the Solomon Islands were analysed. Results indicate that these tools were used to pierce skin and may therefore have been tattooing implements involved in social, ritual and/or medical practices.
The Vessel, 2024
Humans across the globe have tattooed their bodies for at least 5,000 years. However, the archaeological evidence for these practices has been largely overlooked. In this essay, archaeologist Aaron Deter-Wolf describes what drew him to the study of ancient tattooing, and how careful considerations of material culture, including artifacts and preserved human remains, are revealing new information about human bodies in the deep past. https://vessel-magazine.no/issues/7/transforming-bodies/tattoo-archaeology