A 3,600-year-old coffin containing a material that had been wrapped around the neck of a mummified young woman was discovered during an excavation in the Xiaohe Cemetery in Xinjiang, China, in 2003.
Scientists have now claimed to have identified the sample as the oldest piece of cheese in the world, despite the fact that it appeared to be jewelry at the time.
Regular cheese is soft, according to Qiaomei Fu, a paleogeneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, who spoke with News, a partner network of Sky. That’s not what this is. Now, the dust is extremely hard, dense, and dry.”
She clarified that the arid temperature of the Tarim Basin desert is what kept the woman’s coffin in good condition when it was excavated.
The researchers stated that although cheese production has long been documented in history, the “history of fermented dairy is largely lost in antiquity” in a study that was published in the journal Cell.
In an interview with News, Ms. Fu stated that her team extracted samples from three tombs in the Xiaohe Cemetery and used DNA processing to track the bacteria’s thousands of years of evolution.
After that, it was determined that the samples were kefir cheese, which is produced by fermenting milk with kefir grains. Goat and cow’s milk were also evident in the samples.
