PALEOLITHIC ART MAGAZINE

AFRICA

TATTOO BY THE MAN 400.000 YEARS AGO?

Professor Lawrence Barham of the University of Bristol, anthropologist, has discovered a gisement ("Twin Rivers", near Lusaka, Zambia) with pigments, associated to human rests, supposed used for tattoos, going back to 400000 years. But then he adds that, in order to establish with certainty, it would be necessary to find the rests of a frozen man.
We add that the art applied to the body (decoration), with colors or tattoos, than we find in the ethnography everywhere in the world, has for the men, in a generalized manner, a " greater importance" in rapport to the representative art (sculpture, painting), even if the two " functions " are different. The art applied to the body of the last millenia has been replaced from the dresses , very many of which are real works of art. In the ethnography the tattoos of the Maori are truly beautiful. In the western world, from some years, between the young people the fashion of the tattoos is great, many of which are still beautifulr than those of the Maori.

Source: english text Discovery News, without photographs,november, 27,2000

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