The Earliest Human Mummies: A 14,000-Year-Old Smoking Process

Carefully preserved through smoking practices up to 14,000 years ago, a human body has been found at archaeological sites in Southeast Asia, making it the world’s oldest known mummy.

This custom continues today among the Dani people in West Papua, Indonesia, who mummify their deceased relatives by exposing them to smoke and treat them with care and respect as part of the household. Many of these mummies are found in a tightly bound squatting position.

Similar “highly flexed” ancient remains have also been discovered in Australia, China, the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan.

Hsiao-Chun Hung from the Australian National University in Canberra noted the striking similarities between burial remains excavated in relation to Dani traditions while working on ancient skeletons in Vietnam in 2017.

Hung and her team analyzed the burial practices of 54 hunter-gatherers from 11 archaeological sites across Southeast Asia dated between 12,000 and 4,000 years ago to uncover evidence of smoking. Most sites were based in northern Vietnam and southern China.

Numerous remains displayed clear signs of partial burning, though not enough to indicate cremation. The researchers utilized two analytical methods, X-ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy, on several bone samples to assess thermal exposure.

Over 90% of the 69 skeletal samples displayed indications of heat exposure. The findings suggest that while human remains were not subjected to extreme temperatures, they likely endured lower temperatures, potentially from smoking for extended periods.

The oldest mummy examined by a Vietnamese team from Hang Cho dates back over 11,000 years. However, a tightly bound skeleton from another site, Hang Mooy, indicates practices recorded over 14,000 years ago. “We didn’t need X-rays or infrared to analyze this one because it’s evidently partially burned and visible to the naked eye,” explains Hung.

Previously, the oldest known mummy was believed to come from northern Chile, approximately 7,000 years ago, and ancient Egypt around 4,500 years ago.

Hung suggests that the evidence indicates this burial tradition likely spread across southern China and Southeast Asia at least 14,000 years ago, as agricultural societies became prevalent in the region around 4,000 to 3,500 years ago. The constricting bindings of mummified bodies may have facilitated their transport, she notes.

Ethnographic studies indicate that these traditions persisted in southern Australia until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, according to Hung. “Additionally, our literature review in the New Guinea highlands reveals that these practices continue among some communities today.”

“Our results signify a unique blend of techniques, traditions, culture, and a profound connection to ancestry that spans an extraordinary timeframe, covering vast regions from the Paleolithic era to the present,” she states.

Vito Hernandez from Flinders University in Adelaide suggests that this study challenges long-standing beliefs that such practices were exclusive to arid regions like Chile’s Atacama and Egypt’s Nile Valley. “It highlights the role of tropical environments in nurturing distinct mortuary traditions among early modern humans across the Far East and potentially into the Pacific,” he remarks.

“By extending the timeline of mummification by at least 5,000 years, the Chinchalo culture [of South America] emphasizes Southeast Asia’s role as a center for cultural innovation, demonstrating a deep continuity that connects early Holocene hunter-gatherers with present-day indigenous groups in New Guinea and Australia,” Hernandez adds.

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