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A team of Chinese scientists have identified the world’s oldest known cheese, found alongside the Tarim Basin mummies in northwestern China.
The research team extracted and analysed DNA from the ancient cheese, finding cow and goat DNA as well as the DNA of microorganisms that were still used today to produce a cheese called kefir — or Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens.
One of the paper’s authors, Qiaomei Fu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, said this was the “oldest known cheese sample ever discovered in the world”.
“Food items like cheese are extremely difficult to preserve over thousands of years, making this a rare and valuable opportunity. Studying the ancient cheese in great detail can help us better understand our ancestors’ diet and culture,” she said.
Fu said the “unprecedented study” published today in the Cell Press journal allows scientists to observe the bacterial genes in the ancient kefir cheese gave and shed light on the evolution of probiotic bacteria over the past 3000 years.
“By examining dairy products, we’ve gained a clearer picture of ancient human life and their interactions with the world… This is just the beginning, and with this technology, we hope to explore other previously unknown artefacts.”
About two decades ago, a team of archaeologists discovered mysterious white substances smeared on the heads and necks of several mummies found in the Xiaohe cemetery in northwestern China’s Tarim Basin.
These mummies dated back to about 3300 to 3600 years ago, from the Bronze Age. Scientists thought these substances might be a type of fermented dairy product, but they couldn’t identify exactly what kind.
After more than a decade of advancements in ancient DNA analysis, researchers have now successfully extracted mitochondrial DNA from samples found in three different tombs at the cemetery.
“Interestingly, the ancient Xiaohe people used different types of animal milk in separated batches, a practice differing from the mixing of milk types common in Middle Eastern and Greek cheesemaking,” Fu said.
Kefir grains are symbiotic cultures containing multiple species of probiotic bacteria and yeast, which ferment milk into kefir cheese, much like a sourdough starter.
Most importantly, Fu and her colleagues managed to recover the DNA of microorganisms from the dairy samples and confirmed that the white substances were in fact kefir cheese.
The Chinese discovery surpasses the world’s previous oldest cheese sample, a 3200-year-old solid cheese found in the tomb of the mayor of the ancient city of Memphis in Egypt.
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