Scans unveil the secrets of the oldest mummies

The world's oldest mummies have just had an unusual checkup.

More than 7,000 years after they were embalmed by the Chinchorro people, an ancient civilization in modern-day Chile and Peru, 15 mummies were taken to a Santiago clinic recently to undergo DNA analysis and computerized tomography scans.

The Chinchorro were a hunting and fishing people, who lived from 10,000 to 3,400 BC on the Pacific coast of South America, at the edge of the Atacama desert.