I have read that they were placed in pain spots related to some illness, so they may be some kind of medicinal tattoo.
Interesting!!!
That, I had not read. I will be curious what sort of healing you will include. I assume a mix of herbs, heat, etc, but also some ritual dancing, painting, and other religious things. I could write a short narrative depicting an imagined healing scene to give you some ideas (like I did for the Flax thread). Let me know lol
I’d love to see the sims’ appearance graudally changing according to cultural development and available resources. For example, when a tribe relies a lot on hunting, they are more likely to adorn themselves with things like feathers, bones and claws, while a tribe with a big focus on gathering might be more common with paints and beads.
Woven clothing is tough to make. Perhaps a woman who has achieved some great rank may wear woven, dyed flax and feathers, along with painted clay bangles. A man of great deed might adorn himself with a complex series of bone necklaces or even a few lumps of cold forged (pre-copper age) copper bits on a necklace. \o/
While clothing is important, paints were probably VERY important.
I make them often using ash, ocher and other pigments.
Here is a demonstration of putting on 3 pigments.
- Bone char
- Wood ash + walnut oil
- Wood ash
The tattoos/body marking have been seen all over the world since long ago as Ötzi in the Alpes, Amunet of Egypt or the Princess of Ukok and other nobles or warriors of the Scythians tribes and the Chinchorro mummies in the Atacama Desert and the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture (Romania) as well as scarification in Africa which cannot be dated but is thought to be around 10’000 years old. Piercing also existed in the Indian sub-continent for at least 4000years
(links/references in an answer to this post)
Therefore a choice of the different body modification could bring life to a new mechanics as if you chose to follow one of the different types of body modification you would unlock different bonuses (greater immunity to sicknesses/better warriors or hunter/a way to keep track of a certain family/etc)
Anyway I’m really happy that this subject is already being worked on
I’m currently writing my thesis on the origins of body modification so feel free to ask me any questions! (I’ll answer the best I can!!! )
References :
Thompson, Tim; Black, Sue (2010). Forensic Human Identification: An Introduction. ISBN 978-1420005714
Céline Martin-Raget, Musée du quai Branly, Tatoueurs, tatoués
Actes Sud, 2014
ISBN 2330021488, 9782330021481
Marco Samadelliab, Marcello Melis, Matteo Miccoli, Albert R.Zink
Complete mapping of the tattoos of the 5300-year-old Tyrolean Iceman, Journal of Cultural Heritage
Volume 16, Issue 5, September–October 2015,
Javier C.Anguloa, Marcos García-Díezb, Marc Martínez, The Journal of Urology, Volume 186, Issue 6, December 2011, Phallic Decoration in Paleolithic Art: Genital Scarification, Piercing and Tattoos
For my own research for something I was writing, I ended up asking several people who had body scarification using traditional methods. It was quite interesting to learn about \o/
When clothing variation is limited, boy modification and paints are very useful for defining individuality and status, as well as religion.
I hope this is included in the game. A good variation of body paints, tattoos, scars and piercings (as well as other forms of modification) would add realism!
I wanted to experiment with making some bone jewelery.
First, I ate a T-Bone steak to get a bone. Remember: aurochs would have been eaten and bones would have been a-plenty.
This is more experimental anthropology.
First, I used a flame to dry it and burn off extra fat/oils.
First also removed much of the cartilage and marrow.
I removed the back of the bone using a fire to burn through it as my stone tools were not equipped to cut through it.
A thin obsidian blade cut deep within the bone to separate it into two bone faces.
The result are two clean boned faces. I used sand and leather to grand the bones smooth.
Using obsidian to carve grooves, I rubbed wood ash into the grooves to make them stand out.
The bone pendant looks great on my model!
I used sinew and a flax cord.
This might have been addressed already, but I’m curious whether or not our villagers will paint themselves and decorate themselves for rituals. It would be neat to see them spend all day preparing food and paint before the rituals. If you examine contemporary tribes, you will find that the rituals involved with preparation for a ritual are themselves complex and take usually a day or more.
I decided to make a shell necklace to experiment with Neolithic necklaces (again).
As you can see from this Mesolithic burial, shells have been used for a long time for jewelry.
Didier Descouens, 9 October 2010 I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following license: This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
I started by cutting holes in the shells using an obsidian shard and twisting in circular motions, whilst pressing hard. Another technique involves placing tiny grains of sand against the shell, than pressing hard with your finger, using a leather piece as a buffer, in circular motions. These can be used togeather to cut a hole.
Once the shells are cut, you can arrange them as they will fit on the necklace.
Next, we use flax or wool to spin a thread for the necklace cord. I have some already spun.
I chose flax as I think it makes a better necklace cord than wool, due to the long slippery fibers.
Once the shells are joined to the string, the necklace is ready to wear to your next fertility festival or to attract that special someone in the tribe! \o/
Looks good on the model!
So it appears that (as I have stated before) body paint and specifically body patterns are used to ward off insects. This would have been important in Neolithic Europe, given the mosquitos.
This is why it is VERY important that the people in the game should be quite painted.
This would go great with the disease simulation. Painting would take ingredients and time to apply (cost), but could lower the chance of disease (reward). Could be an interesting gameplay choice - do you want disease paint, or ritual paint, as they would provide different benefits. Could be useful to do more rituals in the winters, when mosquitoes are less abundant and farming is not effective.
We can be reasonably sure Neolithic people painted their bodies much of the time. It’s reflected in nearly all of their artwork and seen in more analogous contemporary (better documented) societies.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/378865387399532801/
We can even infer the patterns some may have used based on their artwork.
I suspect Neolithic people wore paint daily as a matter on normal dress.
I am wondering if tattoos, body paints and wearable will in some way describe the guild or type of job/profession a citizen is belonging to or contributing “mostly” in.
But in addition, tattooing could be a special promotional thing, for example strengthen the skills of a individual which improves the skill and will power by a degree, resulting of a citizen not to exhaust as quickly while doing there work.
This could also span the clothing, like shown here for example, a fisherman will make use of sea shells as decorative objects and promotional signs, while a hunter will wear leather, spear, bow or fur clothing and warriors some kind of bones and heavy face paint.
Well I don’t know if there is any evidence indicating that practice during the Neolithic, it sounds like a completely plausible idea. I rather like the idea of using body paint, tattoos, scarification and other forms of decoration to indicate profession and expertise. It would be a nice touch, and much of it could be easily achieved simply using different texture files.