Where is the Origin of Acupuncture?

Acupuncture is commonly associated with Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with popular belief that acupuncture originated in China over 2,000 years ago during the time knowledge and technology were being actively traded between Europe, the Middle East, and China via the Silk Road.

Multiple sources of evidence show that acupuncture techniques were used across Europe, the Middle East, Egypt, and India around the world as early as 5,000 years ago, long before the first recorded evidence of acupuncture appeared in China.

The more recent discovery of Ötzi the Iceman—a 5,300-year-old mummified man found in the Italian Alps— provides the oldest evidence of acupuncture and was an early form of tattooing.

Otzi- an ancient hunter and gatherer- was found with over 60 tattoos made of thin lines and dots positioned over various areas of his body. X-ray, CT scans and MRI imagery tests revealed he had suffered previous injuries to the areas he had tattooed.

These ancient tattoos were made by using a bone needle to puncture the skin with charcoal mixed with herbs rubbed into the acupuncture points made.

The oldest evidence of acupuncture or piercing the skin with a needle for therapeutic effects is surprisingly not originally from China; Italy, Egypt, India, Greece, the Middle East, and South America all provide ancient artifacts, manuscripts, and carvings that document acupuncture, blood letting, cupping, scraping and heating (moxibustion) the body before China, although without the theory of meridians.