Human remains dried by smoke found in Asia can be world

Scientists have discovered what is believed to be the oldest known mummies in the world in southeast Asia that dates back to 12,000 years.

The mummification prevents decomposition by preserving the bodies. The process can happen naturally in places like the sands of The Chilean Atacama Desert or the swamps of Ireland where conditions can defend themselves from decomposition. Humans in several cultures also mummified their ancestors through the reservoir to honor them or send their souls to the other life.

The mummies of Egypt can be the best known, but so far some of the oldest mummies were prepared by a fishing town called Chinchorro about 7,000 years ago in what Peru and Chile now is.

A new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences pushes that timeline backward.

The researchers found human remains that were buried in crouched or squatting positions with some cuts and burns marks in several archaeological sites in China and Vietnam and, to a lesser extent, of the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

When studying the bones, the scientists discovered that the bodies were probably exposed to heat. That suggested that the bodies had been dried by smoke on a fire and mummified by the communities of hunter-gatherers in the area.

The practice “allowed people to maintain physical and spiritual connections with their ancestors, unite time and memory,” said study author Hirofumi Matsumura of the Sapporo Medicine University in Japan in an email.

The results were “a big surprise,” said Hsiao-Chun Hung, senior researcher at the National University of Australia.

“The bones are so old, and it is remarkable to discover that this tradition is so old, connecting the practices of the ancient peoples with which they are still in some communities today,” said Hung.

The process allowed relatives to maintain contact with the deceased, and in some cases it was believed that it allowed the spirit to freely roam during the day and return to a body at night.

“I think this reflects something deeply human: the timeless desire that our loved ones will never leave us, but remain by our side forever,” Hung told the France-Presse agency.

Researchers theorize that practice may have been common in the ancient Asian civilizations.

“This tradition may have been known among hunter-gatherer societies in a vast region, for many millennia,” they wrote in the study,

The dating methods used in the mummies could have been more robust and it is not yet clear that the mummies were constantly dried in all these places in southeastern Asia, said human evolution Rita Peyroteo Stjerna with the Uppsala University in Sweden, which was not involved with the investigation.

The findings offer “an important contribution to the study of prehistoric funeral practices,” he said in an email.

The mummies are far from being the past. Even today, indigenous communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea dry and mummify their dead, scientists said.

Agance France-Presse contributed to this report.

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