For thousands of years, an ethnic group living in what is now the southwest China placed their dead in “hanging coffins” on the rocks, but their identities eluded researchers for a long time. Now, new genetic research shows that this ancient funeral tradition was carried out by the ancestors of people who still live in the region.
The researchers also discovered genetic links between ancient people who practiced the tradition of “coffin hanging” (where ancient wooden coffins were attached to exposed rocks) and Neolithic (“New Stone Age”) people who lived along the coasts of southern China and Southeast Asia.
Over the past 30 years, researchers have documented hundreds of hanging coffins throughout China and Southeast Asia, the researchers wrote in the study. Historical texts and oral traditions note that a small ethnic group known as the Bo people was behind this practice, but for the new study, researchers turned to genetics to solve the mystery once and for all.
In their study, the researchers analyzed the genetics of 11 people, some of whom lived more than 2,000 years ago, at four “hanging coffin” sites in China.
They complemented their research by studying the remains of four people contained in ancient “log coffins“discovered in a cave in northwestern Thailand, the oldest of which dates back 2,300 years and contains 30 genomes of living people of Bo ancestry.
The results suggest that the Hanging Coffin people – and therefore the modern Bo people – had genetic links to groups that lived between 4,000 and 4,500 years ago, during the region's Neolithic period, from about 10,000 BC. until about 2000 BC
“The genetic traces left behind provide compelling evidence of common ancestry and cultural continuity that transcends modern national boundaries,” the researchers wrote in the study.
Hanging coffins
Dozens of “hanging coffin” sites can be found throughout southern China and Taiwan, where it was once a popular funerary style. However, this type of funeral ceased hundreds of years ago during China's Ming Dynasty between 1368 and 1644.
Researchers have noted early references to the Yuan Dynasty, from approximately 1279 to 1368. “Coffins placed high are considered auspicious,” the chronicler wrote. “The higher they are, the more favorable they are for the dead. Moreover, those whose coffins fell to the ground were considered more fortunate.”
Several thousand people of Bo descent now live in China's southern Yunnan province, where they belong to the official Yi ethnic group, although their language and traditions are unique, according to the study.
But their ancestral culture was once much more widespread, spanning regions that are now part of Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Taiwan, the researchers write. The tradition of “coffin hanging” appears to have originated at least 3,400 years ago in the Wuyi Mountains of southeastern China's Fujian province.
General ancestry
The remains of ancient “log coffins” in northwestern Thailand also showed striking genetic similarities to people buried in “hanging coffins,” researchers found, indicating the two peoples shared common ancestry.
In Thailand, coffins were made by sawing a log of wood in half and hollowing out one side and using the other as a coffin lid. The coffins were then buried in a cave, often on wooden supports or high rock ledges.
These finds, as well as evidence from other archaeological sites across Asia, suggest that the Hanging Coffin people were a branch of the ancient Tai-Kadai-speaking peoples who occupied much of southern China before the dominance of the Han ethnic group around the first century BC, the researchers said.
According to Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, ancient speakers of the Tai Kadai languages (also known as the Kra Dai languages) given the name to the modern nation of Thailand and are the ancestors of millions of non-Han Chinese, especially in the south of that country.
But the study's key finding is the ancient identity of the people with “hanging coffins,” the researchers write. In regional folklore, the Bo people were called by “names such as 'Sky Conquerors' and 'Sons of the Rocks', and even described [them] as capable of flight,” the team wrote in the study. Genetics now firmly connect the Bo people with those buried in hanging coffins.
“Approximately 600 years after the custom disappeared from historical records, we discovered that the Bo people are direct descendants of those who practiced the custom of hanging coffins,” the researchers write.
