Another tourist is facing backlash for defacing the Colosseum, but an archaeologist says people have 'always' defaced monuments like this. We just care more now.

• Another tourist carved into the walls of the Colosseum earlier this month.
• But, experts say people have been defacing the monument for centuries.
• Even ancient Romans themselves were known to tag the Colosseum.

The human need to leave a mark on the world is not a new phenomenon — even in the case of graffiti.

After yet another tourist was caught defacing Rome's Colosseum, it may seem like these incidents are on the rise. But an archaeology professor says people have "always" done this and that we just care more now.

"It's the sort of thing that people do and always have done," Valerie Higgins, a professor of archeology and cultural heritage at the American University of Rome, told Insider. "People who in previous centuries did a big tour of Europe, the Grand tour, they put their name on places as well to sort of indicate they had been there. People like Lord Byron did it."

For example, on the walls of the Colosseum, there's one engraving from 1892 in which someone named J. Milber indicated that he had traveled from Strasbourg, National Geographic reported in 2013. 

What's different now, Higgins said, is that "We now have a particular regard for monuments that we haven't had in the past."

"They matter a lot more to people and to their identity," Higgins added. "They've become a cultural symbol that people feel they have to protect, and institutions feel they have to protect."

But it's not just people from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries who left their marks on the Colosseum. Even ancient Romans themselves did it.

During a Colosseum restoration project that began in 2012, experts discovered centuries of graffiti, some even dating back 2,000 years, National Geographic reported in 2013. That restoration revealed red and gray markings of a palm frond, the profile of a face, and the letters "VIND," which could stand for vindicatio, a Latin word meaning vengeance, National Geographic reported. 

Ancient Romans actually left graffiti all around the world — scrawlings that were typically either vulgar and sexual or lofty and poetic, The Spectator reported earlier this month. 

Ancient graffiti at Pompeii, for example, ranged from "You catamite shitter!" and "Lucilla made money from her body" to more pretentious musings like, "Let whoever loves prosper" and "Every lover fights," when translated from Latin, according to The Spectator.

But, despite the historical abundance of graffiti through the centuries, Higgins warns that modern tourists should still steer clear of defacing culturally significant monuments like the Colosseum. 

"It's a question of respect," she said, adding that the only way to deal with and prevent this behavior is education.

"Often, people just don't understand that this is a very important monument to some people. It's their identity. It's their national monument, and you don't just go around sort of writing on it."