There are evidences of biometric uses on human history as early as prehistorical age. Estimated 31000 years old caves are adorned with prehistorical pictures apparently signed by fingerprints stamps of authors. Another evidence is the use of fingerprints by Babylonian at 500 B.C. They used to record business transactions on clay tables in which were found fingerprint stamps.
The first reported use of biometrics was related by portuguese explorer Joâo de Barros in the 14th century. He described the practice of chinese merchants of stamp children´s palmprints and footprint to distinguish from one another
The first real biometric system was created in 1870 by french anthropologist Alphonse Bertillion and turned biometrics a distinguished field of study. He developed an identification system (Bertillonage) based on detailed records of body measurement, physical description and photographs. Despite their imprecise measures and difficulty to apply methodology, the Bertillonage was an important advance on criminal and people identification. It began to fail when it was discovered that many people share the same anthropologic measures.
The first classification method for fingerprints was developed in 1892 by Sir. Francis Galton. The features used by Galton´s method were the minutiae that are still used nowadays.
Some years later in 1896, Sir Edward Henry General Inspector of the Bengal police, began to use Galton´s method to replace the antropometrics system for identification of criminals. Henry created a method to classify and store fingerprint that lets a quick searching of records. Later, that method was introduced by Henry in London for the first British fingerprint file.