Australian archaeologists uncovered the earliest known mummification, "smoke-drying" burials in Southeast Asia, dating back more than 10,000 years, far predating Egyptian mummies, News.az reports citing Xinhua.
The researchers used specialized lab techniques to identify traces of ancient smoking and burning on bones from 54 pre-neolithic burials found at 11 archaeological sites across southern China and Southeast Asia, according to a statement released Tuesday by the Australian National University (ANU).
Some of them were radiocarbon-dated, in one case in northern Vietnam to 14,000 years ago, it said.
"This type of smoke-drying is, so far, the oldest demonstrated method of the intentional preservation of corpses that we have on record anywhere in the world," said ANU Emeritus Professor Peter Bellwood, co-author of the study published in the U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers said ancient hunter-gatherer communities in the region appear to have folded and bound bodies, then slowly smoke-dried them over fires, which allowed the dead to be kept on view in dwellings, caves or rock shelters, potentially for years, despite the region's humid climate.
Bellwood noted the technique differs from natural desiccation in arid regions such as Egypt, Central Asia and the Andes.
"We can learn much about the human past from the study of ancient skeletons," he said, adding that all human societies honor their ancestors, seeking to preserve them after death, whether by tomb or mummification, to protect them from decay, at least for a time.
Lead author Hung Hsiao-chun from ANU said the methods resembled smoked mummification traditions recorded at European contact among Indigenous communities in New Guinea and Australia, suggesting a long cultural continuum spanning Asia to Oceania.
