The world's oldest mummies found in China and Southeast Asia, 10,000 years ago smoke drying corpses, new research indicates.

The world’s oldest mummies, found in China and Southeast Asia, 10,000 years ago smoke drying corpses, new research indicates. Photo by Bill Greenblatt /UPI UPI

Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Scientists discovered what may be the world's oldest known mummies in China and Southeast Asia.

The research posted in the PNAS journal examined 54 pre-Neolithic burials from 11 archeological sites and ancient graves in China, the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia and found remains from 4,000 to 12,000 years ago that appeared to have been burned in a mummification ritual making some of them older than the previous oldest mummies found in Egypt that date back 4,500 years ago.

The bodies were found in tightly crouched or squatting postures and exhibited burn marks that indicated the remains had been smoke-dried over fire before burial as a process of mummification.

"Smoking likely carried spiritual, religious, or cultural meanings that went far beyond simply slowing decay," Hsiao-chun Hung, a senior research fellow at the Australian National University and lead author of the study, said.

"The key difference from the mummies we typically imagine is that these ancient smoked bodies were not sealed in containers after the process, and therefore, their preservation generally lasted only a few decades to a few hundred years," Hung said.

X-ray diffraction was used to assess if the bones had been exposed to heat, and many skeletons show signs of direct combustion.

"We cannot say with certainty whether smoking the body was first conceived as a way to preserve it." It's possible that ancient people discovered smoking accidentally, as a by-product of some kind of ritual practice, or that they discovered smoking animal meat first and then applied it to dead humans," she added.

Before the recent discovery of these mummies, the oldest mummies were found in Peru and Chile.