12,000-year-old smoked mummies reveal world’s earliest evidence of human mummification

A middle-aged woman, discovered in a tightly flexed position at the Liyupo site in southern China, preserved through smoked mummification. Hsiao-chun Hung

Smoke-drying mummification of human remains was practised by hunter-gatherers across southern China, southeast Asia and beyond as far back as 12,000 years ago, my colleagues and I report in new research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This is the earliest known evidence of mummification anywhere in the world, far older than better-known examples from ancient Egypt and South America.