The mummification of the dead are funeral rites, which have been practiced in many places around the world for thousands of years.
The new discovery reveals that we may have underestimated how widespread practice was. Bones showing signs of deliberate mummification were found in Southeast Asia and Southern China, and the age was before the non -linear period 12,000 years ago.
These are several thousand years older than cultures, best known for mummification, Chile Chinchorro people who were mummified 7,000 years ago, and ancient Egyptians who practiced the craft 5,600 years ago.
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A middle -aged woman from southern China, which was a memory of smoke before burial. (Zhen li)
The reason we may have missed it? The technique used by earlier Asian cultures is completely different from the more well -known mummification practice. According to archaeologist Hsiao-Chun’s teams, Halkos Hsiao-Chun, from the Australian National University, their research gradually smoked over the open fire for a long time.
This practice is similar to burials seen in Australia and New Guinea, a little later, indicating the cultural connection through the general funeral rites.
“Our funeral examples from Southeast Asia emphasize the extremely enduring collection of cultural beliefs and funeral practices that have survived for more than 10,000 years among the hunters-colloquinium communities, which were related to their skull attributes and genome affinity in the local New Ginere highland and Australia,” the researchers wrote in their document.
Early and middle burials of Holocene people from South China. (Hung et al., Pna2025)
Archaeologists have previously noted that many of the Neolithic burials in the wide geographical region, which include Southeast Asia and Southern China, have a lot of common; For many, the person is bent in a folding or fetal position tightly tied. In addition, many of these burials indicate that the bones are burning.
The way these cultures processed their dead for burial and how they reached exceptional burial postures were open questions. Hung and her colleagues have postulated that the remains were dried smoke, much like some of the cultures of New Guinea’s heights process their dead so far.
The study team exam included 69 bone samples of 54 against non -public funerals dating back to 4,000 to 12,000 years ago, out of 11 different places in southern China, North Vietnam and Indonesia.
Smoke memorial dead, about 9,000 years ago, dead in the middle age. (Yussuke Kaif and Hirofumi Matsumura)
These bones were exposed to X -ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy (FTRI). XRD is particularly effective in determining changes in bone structure at temperatures above 500 degrees Celsius (932 Fahrenheit). Fir is better to detect bone changes caused by lower temperature effects.
Five of the samples did not return the reliable results of the FIRE, of which 64 samples remain. Most of them, about 84 percent, showed evidence of heat exposure. Some bones also had soot deposits, and the different bones taken from the same person returned different values, indicating that the heating was applied selectively. Some bones also cut tags.
Based on their conclusions, the researchers believe that the process was similar to the modern rites of the New Guinea of the Danish people. The dead person is tightly bound before stopping a low, smoky fire within weeks or months. Bone incisions can mean incisions made for drainage or dissarpting purposes.
Smoke Membists from New Guinea, photographed in 2019 January Both are kept in private households. (Hung et al., Pna2025)
When the individual is sufficiently mummified, the funeral rites may continue. Dani people include open -air screens; It seems that against Neolithic cultures were buried.
These data indicate that conscious mummification worldwide is much more common, more complex and diverse and older than we thought.
“The tradition of smoked mummification is convincing in the long -term cultural survival between ancient southeastern Asia and ethnographic Papuan and Australian Morturai practice. In addition, archaeological findings show that this tradition can be known among hunters and collectors throughout the year and Australia, and it may be.
“As part of this practice, the remains of the deceased have allowed people to maintain physical and spiritual relationships with their ancestors, time and memory of the deceased.”
The investigation has been published Publications of the National Academy of Sciences;