Hanging Coffins — wooden caskets suspended from cliffs — are one of the most enigmatic burial customs in East & Southeast Asia.
But who practised them?
And did their descendants survive?
This new genomic study finds out.
Researchers sequenced DNA from:
🧬 15 ancient individuals from cliff-burial sites (China & Thailand)
🧬 30 present-day Bo individuals from Qiubei County, Yunnan
Result: up to 79% shared ancestry
A direct line from past to present.
The Bo, now classified under the Yi nationality, still practise a ritual known as “soul cave burial” — placing spirits in ancestral caves.
Could this be a cultural echo of the ancient Hanging Coffin tradition?
The evidence suggests: yes.
The tradition likely began ~3,600 years ago in the Wuyi Mountains (SE China), spreading west to Yunnan & south into Thailand and Laos.
The genetic signal follows the same path.
Not just cultural diffusion — but demic migration.
Two 1,200-year-old individuals at the Wa Shi site (Yunnan) show NE Asian and Yellow River ancestry.
They were buried in Hanging Coffins too.
Cultural inclusiveness, even back then?
A snapshot of Tang Dynasty mobility.
Modern Bo speak a Tibeto-Burman language.
But their DNA links to Neolithic southern East Asians — ancestors of Tai-Kadai and Austronesian speakers.
Language can change.
Genes often tell deeper stories.
The study’s impact?
📌 Traces a continuous genetic legacy over 3,000 years
📌 Reconstructs cultural migration corridors in East & SE Asia
📌 Offers a rare view into the dynamics of “vanished” civilisations still alive in genetic memory
“Coffins on cliffs. Genes in genomes.
Science now lets us listen to the dead — and hear the living answer.”
— Lead author, Dr. Xiaoming Zhang (zhangxiaoming@mail.kiz.ac.cn), Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Full paper: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-65264-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-65264-3)
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