Based on a new analysis of dozens of burial, hunters-gathers in ancient Asian parts prepared their dead burials with smoke drying for up to 14,000 years, so the oldest known evidence of human mummification.
People all over the world have long practiced mummified or preserved organic remains, using a variety of ways-including heat, smoke, salts, drying and embalming to remove moisture from the body’s soft tissues and prevent decay. The remains of China, Vietnam and Indonesia, which have been investigated by scientists, have not been obviously mummified. However, after examining the skeletons that were buried after being tightly folded into the squat position, the signs were shown that they had long been exposed to low heat, which would dry and retain the bodies.
Drying the deceased’s smoke is a technique historically known from some local Australian groups and is still used by Papua New Guinea people, researchers said on Monday PN. The similarities between the skeletons studied in the latest analysis, and the similarities of the skeletons of the modern smoke -dried mummy, led to scientists to think whether ancient loading burials could also have been dried smoke.
Previously, the earliest examples of mummification were from the Chinchorro culture in the northern Chile, dating back to about 7,000 years and ancient Egypt for about 4,500 years. Southeast Asia’s findings return the people’s time zone using mumification to preserve their dead thousands of years, the main author of the study said dr. Hsiao-Chun Hung, Senior Researcher at the National University of Australia.
“We believe that the tradition reflects the timeless man’s impulse – the endurance hope, from ancient times to the present, that families and relatives can remain” together “forever, in any form that may be needed,” Hung said in an email to CNN.
The results also mention that hunters-gathers had sophisticated systems to combat the dead, “it can mean complex beliefs about what should happen to the human body after death,” said dr. Emma L. Bysal, Associate Professor, Department of Archeology at the University of Bilkent at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.
“The authors have come up with a possible treatment of a deceased body and to determine the practice that is almost invisible to us today,” CNN e -mail. The letter said in a Basal, who did not participate in new research. “It is impressive to provide such a convincing argument from such difficult evidence.”
An ancient and widespread tradition
The research team investigated 54 chewing burials that were previously found in 11 archaeological sites. While working in 2017-2025, researchers described the results of bones found in southern China, North Vietnam, and Indonesian Island Sumatra. Similar funerals have also been revealed in many years in Saravak in eastern Malaysia, South Java in Indonesia and the Northern Palavan in the Philippines, but they have not been involved in a new analysis.
Dating about 7000 years ago, a tightly folded skeleton of a young man (left) was found in Liyup instead of Longan’s County Guangxi. The skull was partially burned. – courtesy of Hsiao-Chun Hung/Hirofum Matsumura/Australian National University
From their previous work and other research, scientists knew that this extreme squat posture-jacket, firmly folded against the body, was “the most typical feature of the Neolithic burial, especially in southern China and Southeast Asia,” Hung said. “Such burials are usually found in caves, under the rocks of shelters or in the middle of the shell.” (The Neolithic period or the stone age in these regions lasted approximately 7000 to 1700 BC)
For many years, the heavy shocks of these skeletons have been perplexed by scientists. Hirofmus Matsumu, Professor of Physical Anthropology at Japanese Sapporo Medicine University, Hirofum Matsumura, “the first to pay attention to certain skeleton positions that seemed anatomically impossible,” Hung added.
The postures were so extreme that they were unlikely to receive it without “extraordinary intervention”, mentioning that the bodies were manipulated before burial, the authors of the study wrote. The bodies were firmly folded so that most soft tissues, except for dried skin, probably disappeared during burial. In addition, many of these burials were obviously burned.
Since only parts of the skeletons were blackened, the researchers decided that the bones were burned during test cremation. Charring, which was constantly appeared in specific areas of the bodies – elbows, front and lower limbs of the skull – provided intriguing clues. These bones are covered with thinner layers of muscle and fat and would have been more likely to burn if the body was covered above the fire.
However, most excavated skeletons did not show visible signs of burning. In those cases, “we needed to find a scientific way to check our hypothesis,” Hung said.
The interaction of technical, culture and faith
Two video receipt methods-defraction of rectue rays and Fourier transformation infrared spectroscopy-pointing from a closer look at the bone image revealing the remaining signs of heat exposure that were invisible to the naked eye. X -ray diffraction has shown that bone microstructure has been replaced by heating, and spectroscopy found that about 84% of samples contain long -term low temperature heating. According to the study, some unpleasant bones that were not burned were not burned.
Based on similar mummification practices in the modern Papua New Guinea, seen here in Dani’s skeleton, the authors of the study offer people to prepare their dead smoke thousands of years ago by drying the remains. – courtesy of Hsiao-Chun Hung/Hirofum Matsumura/Australian National University
Based on these results and parallels with similar mummification practices in modern Papua New Guinea, the authors of the study offered people thousands of years ago after preparing their dead burial, arranging the body in a bound pose above a low temperature fire; Heating it until the smoke dries the remains; Then the smoke memma body is transmitted to the final resting place in a funeral pit or a natural shelter.
In total, nine places included in a new study showed signs of smoke drying. The oldest potential example – a hand bone that showed signal combustion signs – was from the territory in northern Vietnam, about 14,000 years ago. Most examples were from a funeral that occurred 12,000-4000 years ago.
“Our results reveal the unique interaction between technical, tradition, culture and beliefs from Neolithic cultures in southern China and Southeast Asia,” Hung said. “It is noteworthy that this practice has remained astonished by the time and throughout the huge region, from the late Paleolithic age to the present day. The extent and survival of this practice is extraordinary.”
Among the people in this part of the world, smoke mummification was probably the best choice to preserve the deceased in a humid environment-however, those rituals could rise among the hunters-collateral for a long time before they settled there, the bay added.
Body folding into the squat was characterized by non -public funerals in southern China, said the main author of study dr. Hsiao-Chun Hung. The remains of these middle -aged women who lived 8000-6,700 years ago found in Guangxi in Liyup were dried before burial. – courtesy of Hsiao-Chun Hung/Hirofum Matsumura/Australian National University
“It would be interesting to know in the future and do further research in other regions, whether this practice is actually related to common ancestral groups, and perhaps even their movement to Asia from Africa,” she said.
Funeral traditions are an important part of human culture, reflecting emotional relationships between people. Those who did this type of mummification would have invested a lot of time and energy. Based on ethnographic records describing contemporary smoke drying examples, family or community members are constantly prone for about three months to unfinished for about three months.
During the Neolithic period and previously, smoke drying was “a commitment that could only be maintained by deep love and spiritual devotion,” said Hung.
Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American and how it works in the magazine.
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