B.C.E.
Evidence of fingerprints in early paintings and rock carvings of prehistoric humans.
A.D. 700s
Chinese used fingerprints to establish identity of documents and clay sculpture, but without any formal classification system.
ca. 1000
Quintilian, an attorney in the Roman courts, showed that bloody palm prints were meant to frame a blind man of his mother’s murder.
1248
A Chinese book, Hsi Duan Yu (the washing away of wrongs), contains a description of how to distinguish drowning from strangulation. This was the first recorded application of medical knowledge to the solution of crime.
1609
The first treatise on systematic document examination was published by François Demelle of France.
