KUNMING, CHINA—According to a ZME Science report, a genetic study led by Zhang Xiaoming of the Kunming Institute of Zoology has linked the modern Bo people living in the mountains of southwestern China with 3,000-year-old remains found in southern China’s so-called “hanging coffins.” The hanging coffin burials consist of coffins, usually carved from one piece of wood, placed on beams anchored high off the ground to cliff faces or perched in remote cave openings. The oral history of the modern Bo recalls such hanging burials, while their modern funerary practice includes symbolically placing the spirits of the dead in ancestral caves. But historic documents indicate that the people who built these coffins, who were also known as the Bo, were persecuted during the Ming Dynasty before they disappeared from the records by the seventeenth century. The DNA analysis indicates that the modern Bo are direct descendants of the ancient Bo. The researchers have also determined that some 4,000 years ago, the ancient Bo were linked to the farmers and seafarers on China’s coast, whose descendants populated Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands, and Madagascar. Genetic variety in the ancient remains also shows that many people crossed paths in this part of southern China. For example, the 1,200-year-old genome of one individual was linked to farmers from northern China’s Yellow River region, while another carried DNA related to people from the Mongolian Plateau. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature Communications. To read about individuals in southern China and throughout Southeast Asia who were mummified using a smoke-drying process, go to "Oldest Mummified People," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of 2025.
