Seeing somme 2000+ year old earrings at the museum got me thinking. How did we our ancestor started thinking Let’s poke a hole in your ear, and then keep a piece of silver inside to make-sure the hole stay open Already by today standard’s it sometimes feel a bit crazy.
Bonus question, how did they even prevented infection/allergies. Even today, people still have allergies/infection from earring. But in an era before modern hygiene and medecine, how wasn’t it more dangerous ?
Absolutely had to be a factor. Pain and the evidence of it is a right of passage into adulthood, it shows strength, discipline, perseverance. This would absolutely be attractive to many ancient cultures. I’m sure the reasons were different depending on the society though.
But at least one of them had to have been to impress the local chicks who thought piercings were sexy.
Ironically, these are seen as masculine trait, making actually weird that it is (used to be ?) a woman’s thing in modern western culture. Looks like one of the many gender norm anomaly