NPR

Making A Mark: Ancient Tonga Tattoo Tools May Illustrate Birth Of Polynesian Body Art

Australian researchers used carbon dating to determine the tattoo tools from Tonga are around 2,700 years old.
Geoffrey Clark of Australian National University holds a bone comb from a tattooing kit found to be approximately 2,700 years old.

Tattooing goes back millennia and spans cultures, as evidenced by mummified remainsyet many details of the body modification's origins have been shrouded in mystery. Now an ancient bone tattoo kit from the Pacific island nation of Tonga is providing researchers with more than an inkling

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