
Mayer was the first to declare that friction ridge skin is unique.īy the mid-1800s, with the rapid growth of cities due to the industrial revolution and more productive farming, there was a formally recognized need to identify people. Mayer wrote “Anatomical Copper-plates with Appropriate Explanations” containing drawings of friction ridge skin patterns, noting that “Although the arrangement of skin ridges is never duplicated in two persons, nevertheless the similarities are closer among some individuals. In 1686, Marcello Malpighi, an anatomy professor at the University of Bologna, noted fingerprint ridges, spirals and loops in his treatise.Dutch anatomist Govard Bidloo’s 1685 book, “Anatomy of the Human Body” also described friction ridge skin details.Nehemiah Grew published friction ridge skin observations in “Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London” paper. The 14th century Persian book “Jaamehol-Tawarikh” includes comments about the practice of identifying persons from their fingerprints.In early Egyptian history, traders were identified by their physical descriptors to differentiate between trusted traders of known reputation and previous successful transactions, and those new to the market.Chinese parents also used fingerprints and footprints to differentiate children from one another. Joao de Barros, a Spanish explorer and writer, wrote that early Chinese merchants used fingerprints to settle business transactions.“Babylonian business transactions are recorded in clay tablets that include fingerprints.” There is also evidence that fingerprints were used as a person’s mark as early as 500 B.C.

Surrounding these paintings are numerous handprints that are felt to “have acted as an unforgettable signature” of its originator.

The concept of human-to-human recognition is also seen in behavioral-predominant biometrics such as speaker and gait recognition.

This simple task became increasingly more challenging as populations increased and as more convenient methods of travel introduced many new individuals into- once small communities. Since the beginning of civilization, humans have used faces to identify known (familiar) and unknown (unfamiliar) individuals. One of the oldest and most basic examples of a characteristic that is used for recognition by humans is the face.
