The oldest mummies in the world may hail from southeastern Asia and date back 12,000 years

NEW YORK AP Scientists have discovered what s thought to be the oldest known mummies in the world in southeastern Asia dating back up to years Mummification prevents decay by preserving dead bodies The process can happen naturally in places like the sands of Chile s Atacama Desert or the bogs of Ireland where conditions can fend off decomposition Humans across various cultures also mummified their ancestors through embalming to honor them or send their souls to the afterlife Egypt s mummies may be the greater part well-known but until now various of the oldest mummies were prepared by a fishing people called the Chinchorro about years ago in what s now Peru and Chile A new examination published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences pushes that timeline back Researchers detected human remains that were buried in crouched or squatted positions with chosen cuts and burn marks in various archaeological sites across China and Vietnam and to a lesser extent from the Philippines Laos Thailand Malaysia and Indonesia Studying the bones further scientists discovered the bodies were likely exposed to heat That suggested the bodies had been smoke-dried over a fire and mummified by hunter-gatherer communities in the area The practice allowed people to sustain physical and spiritual connections with their ancestors bridging time and memory investigation author Hirofumi Matsumura with Sapporo Anatomical University in Japan disclosed in an email Dating methods used on the mummies could have been more robust and it s not yet clear that mummies were consistently smoke-dried across all these locations in southeastern Asia announced human evolution expert Rita Peyroteo Stjerna with Uppsala University in Sweden who was not involved with the research The findings offer an central contribution to the assessment of prehistoric funerary practices she reported in an email Mummies are far from a thing of the past Even in the present day Indigenous communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea smoke-dry and mummify their dead scientists stated The Associated Press Strength and Science Department receives patronage from the Howard Hughes Therapeutic Institute s Department of Science Teaching and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation The AP is solely responsible for all content Source