The Tarim Basin mummies were discovered wearing tiny hunks of cheese around their necks—and a new DNA analysis is revealing its origins.

Scientists were finally able to analyze the DNA in the world’s oldest cheese, which was found two decades ago smeared on 3,500-year-old mummies. New technology allowed the team to trace the fermented dairy product, and they were surprised to discover that the substance is kefir.

Scientists have identified the oldest known cheese from the remains of Bronze Age mummies in China's Tarim Basin, dating back to around 2,000 BC. Known as kefir cheese, it was found on the heads and necks of Xiaohe people mummies.

In China, a strange white substance was found on the heads and necks of several 3,600-year-old mummies. When researchers tested the substance, they realized it was the world’s oldest cheese. Initially,

Discover the 3,600-year-old origins of kefir as scientists analyze DNA from ancient cheese, revealing insights into probiotic evolution.

When researchers tested a mysterious substance on the heads and necks of ancient mummies found in China's Tarim Basin, they discovered that it was the world's oldest cheese.

The Guinness Book needs to update its records: the oldest cheese in the world has been found smeared on the heads and necks of 3,600-year-old mummies in China’s Tarim Basin, surpassing the age of a cheese identified in the tomb of an Ancient Egyptian mayor by several hundred years.

The findings could reshape our understanding of ancient food production and microbial fermentation practices in early civilizations.

Cheese production has been recorded in history for millennia, with murals in ancient Egyptian tombs dating back to 2000 BC, and European cheese-making evidence going back 7,000 years. However, the Tarim Basin cheese samples are the oldest physical examples found to date.

The world’s oldest cheese, dating back 3,600 years, has been discovered in an unlikely place. After analysing ancient cheese found alongside mummies in China dating from the Bronze Age, scientists have discovered the cheese is kefir.

Mummies found near China's Tarim Basin were buried 3,600 years ago with snacks for the afterlife. A decade after archaeologists discovered the mummies in an ancient cemetery belonging to the Xiaohe people,