Dr Michelle Dickinson: Nanotechnologist on the discovery of the world’s oldest known cheese

A mysterious white substance found on the heads and necks of 3,600-year-old mummies in north-western China has just been identified as the world’s oldest known cheese. Published in the journal Cell, this discovery offers a rare glimpse into the dietary practices of ancient civilisations. 

The mummies were actually unearthed two decades ago in the Tarim Basin desert and thanks to the regions dry, desert environment they were remarkably well-preserved. Along with their boots and hats, a structure that looked like a necklace was laid along the neck of one young woman. While it looked like a piece of jewellery, recent DNA tests revealed that the substance was in fact kefir cheese. 

Kefir cheese is a probiotic soft cheese made from cow and goat milk. The kefir contained bacterial and fungal species, including Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens and Pichia kudriavzevii, both of which are still found in modern kefir grains.  

This discovery marks the oldest known cheese sample ever found and provides a valuable opportunity for researchers to understand more about the diets and cultures of our ancestors. The research not only reveals insights into early food production methods, but also helps track the evolution of probiotic bacteria over the last 3,600 years. 

Further analysis revealed that the L. kefiranofaciens grains found in the cheese were closely related to similar grains from Tibet. By sequencing the bacterial genes, researchers could trace how dairy products and animal husbandry practices evolved across East Asia, shedding light on the interactions between ancient humans and their environment. 

The Xiaohe people, from what is now Xinjiang, buried items of significance alongside their dead, and the inclusion of kefir cheese indicates the importance of this food in their daily lives. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News talk edb.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Okay, it's time for our science study of the week
and dotor Mischeulderkinson joins us now and I primode what
we were going to talk about, and Stave just absolutely
lost the plot with laughter. He was at, what on
earth are you talking about? This is such a great story.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
There's so many great things about it.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Makes me geg a little, but that's okay.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
So it's published in the journal Cell if you want
to read it at home. And basically, twenty years ago
they found mummies in northern China that were three thy
six hundred years old and so amazing on its own,
but what they found about these mummies is their females
were so let's start again. It's in northern China, which

(00:52):
means it's a very dry desert area, so they were
really well preserved. And they found with the females that
the things that were preserved really well were their boots.
They had boots on that were intact hats, but also
what looked like special type of necklace. There was this
drops of what looked like some sort of jewelry around
their neck and they couldn't figure out what it was,

(01:14):
and it's taken them twenty years, but this week they've
finally done it. They DNA tested this because they didn't
know it was a living thing. They thought it was
some sort of jewelry. They DNA tested this item and
it is the world's oldest cheese. So these females were
buried with cheese around their necks, placed like a necklace.

(01:36):
And what we've learned about these people, which come from
the shing Jan province, is that items that are of
significance were buried amongst their value dead. So apparently cheese
was a big thing back there, to the point where
you were buried with it in a decorative way around
your neck, clearly lost its smell. I don't know. I mean, look,

(02:00):
if you look at the photos of it, it looks
like a crusty scab. So six hundred year old cheese
is obviously dehydrated, brown, disgusting. But they did do DNA
tests on it. Amazing they found that it's actually a
kifa cheese, which is for those who hadn't had it before,
but you can buy it today. It's a probiotic soft
cheese that's either made from cows or goats milk. It's

(02:20):
actually great for those who have a lactose and tolerance,
and we know that within those Chinese culture there are
is a challenge around digesting lactose. And they are actually
not only able to trace the type of cheese it is,
but also trace the two types of bacteria in there,
which are both bacteria found in kifa grains. And it's
helped us also to study and track bacteria over three thousand,

(02:43):
six hundred years and also let us figure out what
our food production is like for our ancestors and what
their diet was like all that time ago. And it's
so hard to get food products from that sort of thing.
I mean, it just all degrees. And so it was
just all of the lucky things. Number one, the fact
that they were buried with cheese around the next Number two,
the fact that it was in this northwest province of

(03:03):
China that is so dry, it's just the perfect conditions
for keeping things over a long period of time. The
fact that the bodies were well preserved. And yeah, but
twenty years to find out that the necklace that they
thought was a necklace was just actually scabby cheese that
they have no DNA tested and there you go. Appreciate
cheese more.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
If people would like to take a look at these
mummies and some very old cheese.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
Where do we go again? The journal is called Sell.
It was published this week and yeah, after twenty years,
we finally know where the wild Doddess cheese is, what
it's made of, what it looks like, and I think
what it smells like. Fascinating. Thank you so much, Michelle.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
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