A new DNA study has finally identified the people who created China’s mysterious “hanging coffins”, a burial tradition that placed wooden coffins on cliffs thousands of years ago. For generations, archaeologists have been fascinated by these unusual burials found across southern China and Southeast Asia. Ancient hanging coffins on cliffs in China’s Yunnan province. The discoveries show that the hanging coffin tradition was part of a much larger cultural network across Southeast Asia. The people behind the hanging coffins were not a lost civilization, but ancestors whose descendants continue to live in the region today.