On the way to the station the wife was querying the origins of the word tattoo and where the practice originated. I thought it was common in the stone age… but she thought it might have required metal so perhaps might have originated in the iron age.
A Wikipedia article says the word tatoo is a corruption of a Polynesian word ‘tatau’ but that the practice itself was notable even as far back as paleolithic times!
Seems that for as long as people have been conscious of self there’s been disatisfaction with our appearence and an ongoing desire to modify what nature provided us with. Still strikes me as weird regardless.
The Eclectic Interweb 