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The Oldest Mummies in the World May Hail From Southeastern Asia and Date Back 12,000 Years
Researchers analyzed 69 bone samples from 11 sites revealing smoke-dried mummification practices persisted over 10,000 years among hunter-gatherers in Southeast Asia.
- Researchers found the oldest evidence of human mummification in Asia, with an arm bone dating to about 14,000 years ago in northern Vietnam.
- The discovery was made after examining 54 crouched burials from 11 locations dated from roughly 12 millennia to 4 millennia in the past, spanning areas of southern China, northern Vietnam, and Sumatra.
- The study revealed that people prepared their dead by positioning bodies over low-temperature fires to dry remains with smoke before burial, a practice sustained by profound love and spiritual devotion.
- Lead author Dr. Hsiao-chun Hung said the findings push back mummification timelines by thousands of years and reflect a timeless human impulse: "families and loved ones might remain together forever."
- These results imply complex burial traditions among hunter-gatherers, revealing an interplay of technique, culture, and belief in pre-Neolithic Southeast Asia.
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81 Articles
According to a study they come from Asia and date back to 12,000 years ago, millennia before those Egyptians
Smoke-dried bodies could be world’s ‘oldest mummies’: study
Some ancient societies in China and southeast Asia appear to have smoke-dried their dead, effectively mummifying them thousands of years earlier than their Egyptian counterparts, new research has found. While the bandage-bound bodies of ancient Egypt date back perhaps as far as 4,500 years ago, the oldest previously known examples of mummification are from ancient
Watauga Democrat
Smoke-dried bodies could be world's 'oldest mummies': study
Some ancient societies in China and southeast Asia appear to have smoke-dried their dead, effectively mummifying them thousands of years earlier than their Egyptian counterparts, new research has found.
Older than all Egyptian mummies: In Southeast Asia, researchers find preserved remains of hunters and collectors, some of which are said to have originated about 12,000 years ago. However, the technique of conservation differs from that of ancient Egypt.
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