Tattooing is one of the oldest and most widespread art forms in the world, and often the designs we decide to commit permanently to our skin are thick with meaning and cultural biases. Studying a tattoo from a certain time and place, therefore, can give us an idea of the cultural norms surrounding its design and application – and that’s precisely what a team from the University of Maine has recently done. As documented in a research report that has not been peer-reviewed, by looking at a selection of 90 samples of tattooed human remains from pre-Columbian Peru, they pinpointed exactly how tatt…