The world's oldest mummies, twice as old as Egyptian ones, have been found in Asia.

BarcelonaThe first evidence of mummification dates back more than 10,000 years and has been located in the pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer societies of Southeast Asia, according to new research from the Australian National University. At the time, funerary culture dictated that bodies be placed in hyperflexed positions and, before burial, they be subjected to a long process of smoke-drying over fire "at relatively low intensities." Archaeologists claim that "they represent the oldest known cases of this type of artificial mummification in the world."

The study analyzed samples from 95 sites from the period in southern China, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Funeral practices from the late Pleistocene and part of the Holocene (between 12,000 and 4,000 years ago) were characterized by these hunched positions or even by evidence of post-mortem dismemberment, and often show traces of burns, according to the article published PNAS (the journal of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States).

This funerary culture contrasts with later Neolithic burials, in which corpses were placed face up with arms extended next to the body. Instead, it coincides with contemporary funerary practices recorded ethnographically in indigenous societies of Australia and New Guinea; these practices have persisted over a very wide region and for more than 10,000 years. The method "should not be considered less advanced" than others, says one of the authors of the article, Hsiao-chun Hung. The mummies found are said to be older than the Chilean ones (which are dated to around 7,000 years ago, a tradition that was abandoned 3,700 years ago) and twice as old as the Egyptian mummies, of which the first attempts at embalming date back to a few years ago. The oldest predynastic desiccated burials.

The remains analyzed, in the Asian case, are only skeletal. The key difference with other mummification techniques is that the bodies were not sealed in containers. Instead, over time, "the smoked mummies were respectfully placed in caves, under rocks, or buried in the ground, so their preservation lasted only a few hundred years and they have only survived." Considering that these are humid regions with monsoon rains, "natural desiccation is not possible."

"We present evidence to suggest that, instead, the corpses were smoked to preserve and mummify the skin," the researchers say. It took about three months of continuous care by the family or community to smoke a corpse, "a commitment that can only be sustained through deep love and spiritual devotion." According to Hung, it is "a unique interaction between technique, tradition, culture, and beliefs."