Smoked-dried mummification practise created world's oldest mummies

When we think of mummies, we tend to imagine embalmed pharaohs, massive pyramids and buried treasure in Ancient Egypt.

That was before we learned of the smoked mummies of Southeast Asia, which are significantly older - and in some cases, somewhat more unsettling.

They are the oldest known examples of deliberate human mummification, and date back up to 12,000 years, say researchers. They studied mummies of hunter-gatherers who were preserved by being smoked over fires.

Unlike Egyptian mummies, these were bodies which were not buried lying down but in crouched or bent positions, sometimes tightly bound. Many show signs of burning of the bones.

The researchers suggested that by preserving the remains of the deceased, people could maintain both physical and spiritual connections to their ancestors.

Similar practices today

Similar rituals can still be found among some Indigenous societies in the highlands of New Guinea and Australia, says the team led by Hsiao-chun Hung of the Australian National University in Canberra.

Certain cultural beliefs and burial practices appear to have persisted for over 10,000 years in hunter-gatherer communities, they say.

In the past, mummification was associated primarily with arid climates. The Chinchorro people in Chile preserved their dead as early as 7,000 years ago in the Atacama Desert. The Egyptians developed their famous embalming techniques for pharaohs around 4,500 years ago, using hot desert sand for preservation.

But in the humid monsoon regions of Southeast Asia, however, such drying methods would have been nearly impossible.

Bodies manipulated

In parts of what is now southern China, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia, people instead used smoke and controlled heat, the study says.

The authors looked at mummies from 95 archaeological sites across Southeast Asia. They found cut marks on bones, indicating deliberate interventions such as bending body parts or draining fluids.

In some cases, traces suggested the ritual removal of small pieces of flesh. This may point to complex burial traditions involving ritual interactions with the body.

"Our findings highlight a deep and enduring biological and cultural continuity that connects ancient hunter-gatherer peoples in Southeast Asia with contemporary Indigenous communities in New Guinea and Australia," say the scientists whose work is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.