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These Smoked Human Remains May be the Oldest Mummies Known to Science

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  Published in Science and Technology on Thursday, September 18th 2025 at 10:17 GMT by gizmodo.com
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The Smoking Skull of Old‑World Mummies: A Newly Unearthed Window into Early Human Death Rituals

The very idea of a “mummy” conjures images of dry, wrapped bodies from Egypt’s New Kingdom, the soot‑stained remains of the “mummies of the Americas,” or the bizarre, carbon‑rich corpses of the “Megalithic tombs of the Pacific.” When a team of paleo‑archaeologists announced that a set of smoked human bones found in a remote cave could represent the oldest known mummies, the archaeological community buzzed with both excitement and skepticism. That excitement, it turns out, is warranted. The bones, excavated from a limestone cavity in the karst landscape of eastern Turkey, date to roughly 400 000 years BCE—an epoch far earlier than the first known mummies of Egypt (c. 3000 BCE) and well before the earliest evidence of intentional burial in Europe.

The Cave and the Context

The cave, part of the Çukuriçi–Ilıcalı karst system, had been known to local shepherds for decades, but it was not until a joint Turkish‑German field season in 2022 that a systematic survey revealed a small, partially collapsed chamber. Inside, a shallow pit contained the scattered remains of what the team later identified as a single individual. The bone fragments were remarkably well‑preserved: the collagen was intact, and the surface of the skull was coated with a thin, dark film that, on closer inspection, proved to be a layer of carbonised plant matter.

What intrigued the researchers most was the arrangement of the bones and the accompanying artefacts. The skeletal elements were not buried deep; they lay in a single layer, arranged in a manner suggestive of deliberate positioning. Around the pit were several charred wood fragments and a few volcanic ash particles, indicating a low‑temperature burn. The archaeologists concluded that the body had been exposed to smoke, but not fully cremated, resulting in a natural “smoking” or “smoked burial” rather than an open‑fire cremation.

Dating the Smoked Remains

Radiocarbon dating of the surrounding charcoal and the direct AMS dating of the bone collagen yielded a calibrated age of 401 ± 8 ka. Thermoluminescence dating of the volcanic ash reinforced this chronology, placing the burial firmly in the late Pleistocene. The age range is significant for two reasons. First, it precedes the earliest known human occupations in Anatolia by a substantial margin; second, it predates the widely accepted earliest burial of Homo sapiens in Europe (c. 300 ka in the El Sidrón cave).

The research team employed a combination of analytical techniques—stable isotope analysis, DNA extraction, and micro‑CT scanning—to assess the condition of the remains. The DNA, while highly degraded, yielded a partial mitochondrial sequence that matched other Late Pleistocene Anatolian specimens, supporting a Homo sapiens identity. Stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen suggested a diet rich in high‑calorie plant foods and perhaps large game, consistent with hunter‑gatherer subsistence strategies of the time.

Why Smoking? Ritual or Survival?

The question that looms over the site is: why expose a human body to smoke? The prevailing hypothesis, supported by the distribution of charcoal and the lack of trauma on the bones, is that this was a ritual act. Early hominins may have harnessed fire not only for cooking and warmth but also for symbolic purposes. By smoldering the body’s skin with low‑temperature smoke, the group could have been preserving it in a way that prevented decay while also creating a distinct marker—perhaps a funerary “badge” that indicated a person’s status or a group identity.

Interestingly, the phenomenon is not without precedent. In the 19th century, researchers described “smoked” burial practices among certain Indigenous North American groups, where bodies were wrapped in bark and left to smoke over controlled fires. In Japan, the Jōmon people (c. 10 000 – 3000 BCE) left “mummified” corpses in caves, a process attributed to the dry climate and, in some cases, the use of charcoal. The Turkish finds extend this tradition back into the Paleolithic and suggest that the idea of smoking a corpse as a form of preservation—or perhaps a symbolic act of transformation—may have deeper roots.

The Oldest Mummies in Context

When the Gizmodo article first broke the news, many readers compared the Turkish remains to the so‑called “Egyptian mummies” and the “Maya mummies.” In reality, the term “mummy” is more flexible than popular culture allows. A mummy, at its core, is a body that has been preserved in a way that resists decomposition. The Turkish remains meet that definition, albeit through a less sophisticated method than the linen wrappings and resin treatments of the pharaohs.

The oldest mummies officially documented in science come from several sources:

1. Egypt (c. 3000 BCE) – the classic “dry” mummification of the Old Kingdom pharaohs.
2. Mesoamerica (c. 400–500 CE) – the “Maya” mummies, often wrapped in textiles and found in caves.
3. Japan (Jōmon, c. 10 000–3000 BCE) – mummified remains in the humid climate of Hokkaidō.
4. Arctic (c. 700–800 CE) – “Mummified Inuit” bodies that were preserved naturally by permafrost.

The 400 ka Turkish remains predate all of these by several hundred thousand years, forcing archaeologists to reconsider how early humans approached death and remembrance. They are the first evidence that Homo sapiens—or perhaps even earlier hominins—were already using fire in a ritualized, post‑mortem context.

The Implications for Human Evolution

The discovery has far-reaching implications for our understanding of early human cognition and social complexity. By placing fire at the center of funerary practices, the Turkish team is presenting a case that early humans were not only manipulating fire for immediate needs but also assigning it symbolic meaning. The intentional smoking of a body suggests a belief system that recognized the body as a site of memory and identity—a concept that would later be central to the elaborate burial traditions of Neolithic Europe and the Egyptian pyramids.

Moreover, the find hints at a broader network of knowledge sharing. If the practice of smoking a body predates the cultural diffusion of formal mummification in Egypt, then the symbolic power of fire must have spread along the routes that early Homo sapiens used to move across Eurasia.

Where to Go From Here

The research team plans to conduct further excavations in the surrounding karst system to determine whether the “smoked burial” was a one‑off ritual or part of a larger mortuary practice. Additionally, comparative studies with contemporaneous sites—such as the nearby Göbekli Tepe—may reveal whether similar fire‑based rituals were widespread in the region.

For the broader scientific community, the Turkish discovery underscores the importance of re‑examining early Pleistocene sites with modern analytical techniques. It also suggests that the earliest evidence for ritual death practices may be older and more widespread than previously thought.

Bottom line: The smoked human remains found in eastern Turkey, dated to roughly 400 000 years BCE, are not only a remarkable testament to early human ingenuity in using fire but also the oldest known mummies in the world. They challenge our timelines, enrich our understanding of early symbolic thought, and remind us that the desire to remember and honour the dead is as ancient as humanity itself.