Worlds Oldest Tattoos Discovered

Lars Krutak, a research associate in the NMNH Department of Anthropology

The debate of whether Otzi, a European Tyrolean Iceman, or Chinchorro, a South American Mummy from the Chinchorro culture have the oldest tattoos has come to a close.

Lars Krutak, a research associate in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), and three other researchers found Otzi has the oldest tattoos on record. To come to their conculsion, Krutak and his team used a technique known as radiocarbon dating to determine the age of both Otzi and Chinchorro. This research will be published in the February 2016 edition of The Journal of Archeological Science: Report.

If you want to read more about Krutak’s findings, check out the Smithsonian Science News article here.