Until recently, archaeologists considered that the oldest mummies came from South America. But an international study led by the National University of Australia (ANU), published on September 15, 2025 in the journal Pnasreveals that mummified burials discovered in Southeast Asia contain 12,000-year-old bones.
The study relates to 54 burials from 11 archaeological sites located in China, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia and Laos. It highlights a mummification technique practiced by hunter groups: mummification by smoking. The body was placed in the squatting position and then exposed to smoke from a fire for several weeks, even several months, in order to dry it out and preserve it.
To demonstrate this invisible practice with the naked eye, the researchers used analyzes to detect traces of smoke and burns. In 84 % of samples, heat exposure indices were noted. Carbon dates have made it possible to establish that some of these mummies go back more than 12,000 years. According to Peter Bellwood, study co-author, “This type of smoke drying is, so far, the oldest method demonstrated in intentional preservation of the corpses we have in the world”.
Excavation site containing mummies in Guangxi, southern China.
© Hsiao-Chun Hung
A comparison with burials discovered on Broadbeech, Queensland, in the 1960s, led the researcher, Hsiao-Chun Hung, to conclude: “Our discoveries establish a link between the old populations of hunter-gatherers of Southeast Asia and the more modern Aboriginal communities in New Guinea and Australia. »» These traditions would therefore have been known and practiced on a vast territory, from Northeast Asia to Western Oceania, some being still attested at the time of the first contacts with Europeans.
This symbolic practice aimed to maintain continuity between living and dead. As Hirofumi Matsumura explains, “This tradition allowed communities to maintain a physical and spiritual link with their ancestors”the deceased remaining present in the village during the smoking period, then placed in a shelter near a fire maintained daily.
However, certain criticisms have been issued, notably by Rita Peyroteo Stjerna, specialist in human evolution at the University of Uppsala, who judges the dating methods still insufficiently robust.
Until now, the oldest known mummies were therefore those of Chiloorro culture in Chile, dated 7,000 years. This different technique consisted in removing the organs, filling the body with plants then allowing the mummy to dry for a month, or 2,500 years before the first Egyptian mummifications by embalming.
