The world’s oldest human mummies have been preserved utilizing smoke drying methods 10,000 years in the past, new analysis has discovered.
A examine of dozens of corpses discovered throughout 11 burial websites in Southeast Asia and southern China revealed how hunter-gatherers dried the our bodies of their ancestors over fires in a tightly crouched foetal place.
The analysis, revealed within the journal PNAS, uncovered mummification practices happening lengthy earlier than the well-known Historic Egyptian mummies, relationship again 4,000 to 12,000 years.
Researchers analysed human bone samples from 95 pre-Neolithic archaeological websites throughout southern China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Utilizing non-invasive methods reminiscent of X-ray diffraction, they have been capable of assess whether or not the skeletons had been uncovered to warmth, and whether or not this had taken place previous to burial.
They discovered many bones have been blackened and confirmed proof of warmth injury, whereas the graves themselves didn’t seem to have been uncovered to fireside. Nevertheless, their findings confirmed that sure physique elements have been uncovered to comparatively low temperatures, with solely sure skeletal areas being subjected to direct burning, suggesting a “distinct type of warmth remedy” after demise.
Researchers mentioned the rituals possible concerned burning the our bodies with fireplace and smoke slightly than open flames, setting it other than extra standard cremation practices.
The rituals would have been practiced broadly in pre-farming communities throughout southern China and Southeast Asia, in keeping with teachers, who added these practices nonetheless exist in some locations right this moment.
They mentioned virtually, it was possible that the smoking method was the “simplest” option to protect corpses in tropical climates – however that the “care and consistency” within the remedies advised preservation alone was not the one cause to deal with the our bodies with smoke and fireplace.
“Among the many Anga, as an illustration, individuals nonetheless consider that the spirit of the deceased roams freely throughout the day and returns to the mummified physique at evening,” they wrote. “Among the many Taramindjeri of South Australia, mummification is linked to a hope of immortality.
“These beliefs spotlight the kinds of symbolism which may have been hooked up to the physique and its remedy after demise.”
They added their findings advised that smoked mummification might need originated earlier, and been extra widespread, than beforehand thought.
Researchers mentioned this confirmed “a remarkably enduring set of cultural beliefs and mortuary practices”.
“Our findings spotlight a deep and enduring organic and cultural continuity, linking historic hunter-gatherer populations in Southeastern Asia with fashionable Indigenous communities in New Guinea and Australia,” they wrote.
“The custom of smoked mummification serves as compelling proof of long-term cultural persistence between historic Southeastern Asian and ethnographic Papuan and Australian mortuary practices. Moreover, archaeological findings counsel that this custom could have been recognized amongst hunter-gatherer societies throughout an enormous area, for a lot of millennia, extending from northeastern Asia and Jomon Japan to western Oceania and Australia, and presumably farther.
“By way of this apply, the smoked and preserved stays of the deceased allowed individuals to maintain bodily and non secular connections with their ancestors, bridging time and reminiscence.”
