Overview

• Radiocarbon and bone studies place several Southeast Asian specimens at more than 9,000 years old, with some reports approaching 12,000 years, predating Egyptian and Chinchorro examples.
• Heat patterns, cut marks and tightly bound, crouched burials indicate deliberate smoking over fires rather than embalming or natural desert drying.
• The sample spans South China and multiple Southeast Asian countries, including Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, many in humid tropical settings where air desiccation is unlikely.
• Researchers note parallels with mortuary practices still documented among Indigenous communities in New Guinea and Australia that emphasize enduring connections with ancestors.
• The authors suggest the tradition could be more widespread and older in the region, while calling for additional direct dating, biomolecular analyses and contextual archaeological work to test that possibility.