Tattooing for spiritual and decorative purposes in Japan is thought to extend back to at least the or paleolithic period (approximately 10,000 BC) on the Japanese archipelago. Some scholars have suggested that the distinctive cord-marked patterns observed on the faces and bodies of figures dated to that period represent tattoos, but this claim is not unanimously accepted. There are similarities, however, between such markings and the tattoo traditions observed in other contemporaneous cultures. In the following period (c. 300 BC–300 AD) tattoo designs were observed and remarked upon by Chinese visitors. Such designs were thought to have spiritual significance as well as functioning as a status symbol.