Smoke and Devotion

Mummies often conjure up images of ancient Egypt. But new research shows that the practice of preserving bodies began much earlier – and much further east.  

Archeologists studying remains in southern China and Southeast Asia recently found evidence of smoke-drying mummification practices that date back as far as 12,000 years ago, making these the world’s oldest known mummies. 

That’s the conclusion of lead author Hsiao-chun Hung and her team after examining 54 burials from 11 sites, with samples from various sites, including the southern Chinese Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and others in Vietnam, Thailand, and Indonesia.  

She reported in the Conversation that the skeletons were often crouched or squatting, with bones showing traces of low heat exposure. Using X-ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy, Hung and her colleagues confirmed that the bodies had been smoke-dried over fire for extended periods before burial. 

The breakthrough moment came during a 2017 excavation in Vietnam, when researchers compared the unusual burials to the smoked mummies of Papua New Guinea.  

“It’s a bit like detective work – finding small clues, piecing them together, and growing increasingly confident in the hypothesis,” Hung told NBC News.  

The practice appears to have been widespread across East Asia and may date back to more than 20,000 years in Southeast Asia. Hung added that it never completely disappeared.  

“Ethnographic records show this tradition survived in southern Australia well into the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” she wrote in the Conversation. “In the New Guinea Highlands, some communities have even kept the practice alive into recent times.” 

The findings also reshape long-held assumptions about mummification’s origins. 

Previously, the Chinchorro people of modern-day Chile and Peru were believed to have produced the earliest mummies about 7,000 years ago. 

“The term (mummification) has been taken on by other groups to identify other preserved bodies, so it’s got a much more general understanding now,” Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist from the American University in Cairo who was not involved in the study, told NBC News. “What is nice is that the idea behind it is similar, because they wanted to preserve the body.”

The authors noted that the findings also highlight a deep continuity in human culture: The desire to preserve loved ones and maintain bonds across generations. 

“In both southern Australia and Papua New Guinea, ethnographic records show that preparing a single smoked mummy could take as long as three months of continuous care,” Hung explained in the Conversation. “Such extraordinary devotion was possible only through deep love and powerful spiritual belief.