By: Andrew Gillreath-Brown, a current PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University. Twitter: @andrewwbrown; Instagram: @computational_archaeologist and Aaron Deter-Wolf, the Prehistoric Archaeologist for the Tennessee Division of Archaeology, and runs the tattoo archaeology Instagram: @archaeologyink
Ethnographic literature from the southwestern United States provides us with early descriptions of Native American tattooing practices and tools including hafted, bundled, and individual cactus spines.
It’s a tale of an avocado pitting gone wrong. One minute, Kathy was stabbing avocado pits[i], the next, the knife had slipped and cut deeply into the ring finger of her left hand. She was doing fieldwork in Quito, Ecuador, and she was too far away from a doctor or hospital to get stitches.
