Human remains found across Southeast Asia and southern China show signs of deliberate smoke-drying that could make them the world’s oldest known mummies, researchers report.
The study, led by Hsiao-chun Hung of the Australian National University in Canberra and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that many tightly bound, crouched burials were exposed to prolonged smoke and low heat before final interment.
The team examined more than 50 pre-farming burials from 11 sites that span southeastern China, northern Vietnam, Island Southeast Asia and beyond.
The remains date from roughly 12,000 to 4,000 calibrated years before present, a range that in some cases predates the well-known mummification traditions of the Chinchorro in Chile (about 7,000 cal. BP) and the Egyptian Old Kingdom (about 4,500 cal. BP).
The burials often preserve bodies in hyper-flexed or squatting positions. Many show traces of soot, localized charring and cut marks on joints.
To test whether heat and smoke, rather than simple post-burial change, caused these traces, researchers used laboratory methods that reveal subtle changes in bone chemistry.
They ran X-ray diffraction (XRD) on 20 samples and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) on 69 bone fragments. Those techniques detect thermal alteration that might not be visible on the surface.
Evidence of smoke-drying found across multiple Southeast Asian sites
FTIR results were striking. Of 64 good spectra, roughly 84 percent had signals consistent with low-temperature heating or smoke exposure. Most bones showed only mild thermal changes, but a significant number carried evidence of higher-temperature alteration.
XRD testing identified several samples with crystalline changes consistent with exposure above 525 °C, while others fit low-temperature heating or no heating.
Together, the chemical fingerprints point to a mortuary process that used prolonged smoking and occasional direct flames rather than full cremation.
Laboratory evidence: XRD and FTIR results
Field and excavation records match the lab data. At shell-midden and cave sites in Guangxi province in southern China, and at several sites in northern Vietnam and Indonesia, bones were often tightly bound in primary burials. In some graves, articulated skeletons show no internal voids between limbs and torso.
That compactness suggests soft tissues had been dried and hardened before burial. At Huiyaotian and Liyupo in Guangxi, for example, a proportion of skeletons show partial burning on skulls, elbows and lower legs. In northern Vietnam and Java, researchers found similarly charred elements and cut marks in anatomically vulnerable spots.
The study interprets those cut marks and joint-focused burns as part of the smoking process. In some cases, cuts appear aimed at loosening joints so the corpse could be tightly flexed after rigor mortis. Other marks fit later defleshing of a preserved corpse.
The pattern differs from cremation. Burning was often localized and uneven. Soot deposition and low-oxygen conditions produced the blackened surfaces on many bones. Those patterns match ethnographic accounts of smoke-drying.
Field records and cut marks support controlled smoking rituals
Living traditions in the New Guinea Highlands and parts of Australia provide close parallels. Ethnographers document communities that bind the dead, suspend them above slow fires, and smoke them for weeks or months until the flesh desiccates.
The Dani people of Papua, for example, smoked bodies until they turned black and then kept the mummified remains in houses for ritual use.
The Anga of eastern Papua New Guinea placed important dead above continuous low fires for extended periods. Those practices preserve skin and soft tissue while allowing later display or secondary treatment.
Researchers say the archaeological burials likely reflect the same basic process. Corpses appear to have been bound soon after death, dried over smoky fires in a controlled setting such as a hut or shelter, and later placed in caves, shell middens or sheltered pits.
In some cases the mummified remains may have decayed or been disassembled before burial, producing the taphonomic configurations archaeologists sometimes read as deliberate dismemberment.
Ethnographic parallels in New Guinea and Australia strengthen interpretation
The geographic reach and antiquity of the practice are central to the study’s significance. The burials come from a broad arc running from southern China through mainland Southeast Asia to Island Southeast Asia and possibly into western Oceania and Australia.
Craniofacial and genomic analyses link many of the individuals to an early layer of hunter-gatherer populations related to modern Indigenous New Guinea Highland and Australian peoples.
That biological connection, the authors say, raises the possibility that smoke-drying mortuary rites sustained through millennia among related communities.
The researchers caution against simple explanations. Smoking offered a practical way to slow decay in humid, monsoon climates where natural desiccation is not possible. But the care and ritual around the practice suggest stronger motives.
Ethnographic accounts tie smoking to ancestor veneration and ideas about the spirit’s relation to the preserved body. Smoking might have helped preserve a physical presence for social memory and ritual use.
The study also raises larger questions. Did smoke-drying mummification spread with the early movements of modern humans through tropical Asia? Or did separate groups develop similar techniques independently where climate and social needs favored corpse preservation?
The team notes that similar flexed and partially burnt burials appear in parts of Northeast Asia, Jomon Japan and in some Australian sites, but more work is needed to map timing and cultural links.
Skeletal materials kept in local institutions
The research relied on curated collections held in museums and institutions across multiple countries. Sampling and laboratory work proceeded under institutional permits. The authors emphasize that most collections remain in local care and that future study will require formal access requests.
By combining excavation reports, osteological study and modern chemical testing, the authors present a consistent picture of smoke-dried bodies as an intentional mortuary technology.
If confirmed by further dating and wider sampling, the practice could rewrite part of the global history of mummification. The findings suggest that hunter-gatherer societies in monsoon Asia developed ritualized ways to preserve and honor the dead long before the rise of ancient Egypt or the Chinchorro of South America.
