A 2,000-year-old tool that had been sitting inside a dusty box in a museum storage room for roughly four decades may be the oldest tattooing artifact ever discovered in western North America, Washington State University (WSU) archaeologists revealed this week. According to WSU, researchers mainly rely on ancient artwork to better understand how tattoos played a role in indigenous cultures — so this particular discovery has "great significance." Archaeologists know tattooing was prevalent in ancient days, particularly to religious groups and the wealthy who used it as a status symbol. Only recently did experts in the U.K. find the world's oldest figurative tattoos on two 5,000-year-old Egyptian mummies, including the oldest tattooed female ever discovered. “The residue staining from tattoo pigments on the tip was what immediately piqued my interest as being possibly a tattoo tool."

Source: Fox News March 01, 2019 20:48 UTC