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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