DNA Links Ancient 'Hanging Coffins' to Living Bo Descendants

For centuries, wooden coffins suspended on cliff faces across southern China and parts of Southeast Asia puzzled archaeologists and historians. A new genetic study published Nov. 20 in Nature Communications provides strong evidence that the people who practiced these "hanging coffin" burials are ancestrally linked to the modern Bo community living in southwest China.

Study and methods

The international research team sequenced genome data from 11 ancient individuals recovered at four hanging-coffin sites in China, supplemented by four ancient individuals from log-coffin burials in northwestern Thailand (the oldest Thai sample dates to about 2,300 years ago). The researchers also analyzed 30 genomes from people who identify as Bo descendants today. Together, these datasets allowed direct comparisons across time and region.

Key findings

The study finds that the hanging-coffin people share genetic affinities with Neolithic coastal populations of southern China and mainland Southeast Asia who lived roughly 4,000–4,500 years ago. The authors trace the likely origin of the hanging-coffin custom to the Wuyi Mountains in Fujian province at least 3,400 years ago and show genetic parallels between the Chinese cliff burials and the Thai log-coffin burials.

Based on archaeological and linguistic evidence, the researchers suggest the hanging-coffin practitioners were a branch of ancient Tai-Kadai (Kra-Dai)–speaking peoples who inhabited much of southern China before large-scale Han expansion after the first century B.C. Today only a few thousand people identified as Bo live in Yunnan province; they are officially classified within the Yi group but retain distinctive language and customs.

“Approximately 600 years after the custom vanished from historical records, we found that the Bo people are the direct descendants of the hanging-coffin practitioners,” the study concludes.

Historical context and cultural continuity

Archaeologists have documented hundreds of hanging-coffin sites across southern China and Taiwan. Historical records note that the practice persisted into the late medieval era and then faded during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). A Yuan dynasty chronicler observed: “Coffins set high are considered auspicious. The higher they are, the more propitious they are for the dead.”

By combining ancient DNA with archaeological and historical evidence, the study illuminates long-term patterns of migration, language spread, and ritual practice across a wide region—demonstrating how a distinctive funerary custom and the people who performed it persisted across millennia and across modern national boundaries.

Why it matters

This research resolves a long-standing ethnographic question and highlights how genomic data can reveal deep cultural and biological continuities. It shows that burial practices, language families, and population histories are interwoven across southern China and mainland Southeast Asia, offering a clearer picture of the region's prehistoric and historic human landscapes.