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Period: 1792 BCE to 1750 BCE
Babylon Discovery
Archaeologists discovered fingerprints pressed into clay tablet contracts -
Dr. Nehemiah
Wrote a paper describing the patterns that he saw on human hands under the microscope, including the presence of ridges. This was the earliest record of the study of patterns on human hands. -
Jan Evangelist Purkyn
Described nine distinct fingerprint patterns, including loops, spirals, circles, and double whorls -
Sir William Herschel
Began the collecting of fingerprints. He noted the patterns were unique to each person and were not altered by age -
Alphonse Bertillon
Created a way to identify criminals, called Bertillonage which was first used to identify a repeating offender. -
Classification System
Sir Francis Galton and Sir E. R. Henry, developed the classification system for fingerprints that is still in use today in the United States and Europe. -
Bertillonage System & Murder
Bertillon was credited with solving the first murder using fingerprints. -
FBI & Fingerprints
The FBI had 23 million criminal fingerprints cards on file, and getting a match with a fingerprint found at a crime scene and one stored on file required manual searching. -
Flaws of Fingerprint Identifcation
156 fingerprint examiners were given a test. One in five examiners made at least one false-positive identification. -
AFIS
The FBI developed the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. This system provides digital, automated fingerprint searches, latent searches, electronic exchange of fingerprints, and test results.
