Scientists have discovered what may very well be the world’s oldest recognized mummies in southeast Asia, with a number of the preserved stays believed up to now again 12,000 years.
Researchers discovered human stays that had been buried in crouched or squatted positions with some cuts and burn marks in varied archaeological websites throughout China and Vietnam.
Different stays had been discovered within the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
In a examine printed within the journal Proceedings of the Nationwide Academy of Sciences, scientists revealed the our bodies had been possible uncovered to warmth and urged that they had been smoke-dried over a fireplace and mummified.
Examine creator Hirofumi Matsumura, with Sapporo Medical College in Japan, mentioned the follow “allowed people to sustain physical and spiritual connections with their ancestors, bridging time and memory”.
Picture:
Pic: Li Zhen and Hirofumi Matsumuravia / AP
Whereas mummification can occur naturally in locations the place situations can cease decomposition, varied cultures additionally mummified their ancestors by means of embalming to honour them or ship their souls to the afterlife.
Egyptian mummies are probably the most well-known, however a number of the oldest recognized mummies had been ready by a fishing individuals referred to as the Chinchorro about 7,000 years in the past in what’s now Peru and Chile.
In fashionable instances, indigenous communities in Australia and Papua New Guinea additionally smoke-dry and mummify their useless.
Rita Peyroteo Stjerna, a human evolution skilled with Uppsala College in Sweden, who was not concerned within the analysis printed on Monday, expressed some doubts concerning the examine, saying that the courting strategies used might have been extra strong.
