Researchers believe they have discovered the world's oldest cheese on Chinese mummies that date back to around 1615 B.C.
"Yellowish clumps" were found on the chests of the unusually well-preserved mummies that turned out to be a lactose-free cheese, USA TODAY reported.
The cheese could be evidence of ancient technological advances as herds of dairy animals became an important development across Asia.
"We not only identified the product as the earliest known cheese, but we also have direct evidence of ancient technology," study author Andrej Shevchenko, an analytical chemist at Germany's Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, told USA TODAY. The method was "easy, cheap. It's a technology for the common people," Shevchenko described.
How was such a perishable item preserved for thousands of years?
Both the cheese and the mummies have "extraordinary conditions" to thank, according to USA TODAY.
They were discovered at Small River Cemetery Number 5, a site in northwestern China that was first recorded by an archaeologist in the 1930s. Dozens of bodies were buried at the cemetery in the huge Taklamakan Desert, "vacuum-packed" inside large wooden boats wrapped with cowhide.
The bodies and the items packed in with them were essentially freeze-dried as dry desert air and salty soil sustained them to a remarkable degree. The hair and features of the buried dead as well as their clothing have been incredibly well-preserved.
The cheese in particular is an amazing find since normally, "bacteria will get in and start to eat it away, liquefy it," bioarchaeologist Oliver Craig of the University of York in Britain, who was not involved in the study, told USA TODAY.
"It's just amazing it survived."
By analyzing fat and protein in the cheese clumps, the research team determined that they were actually cheese, not butter or milk, USA TODAY reported.
Researchers believe that the ancient Chinese cheese was made in a process similar to that used today to make kefir, a dairy beverage. The cheese found on the mummies was made by combing milk with a bacteria and yeast "starter," according to the analysis.
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