In a milestone feat of paleogenomic archaeology, an international research team has successfully extracted and sequenced ancient DNA from mysterious organic residues smeared on the necks and faces of 3,600-year-old mummies in northwestern China, confirming the samples are the oldest surviving cheese ever discovered.
The peer-reviewed study, published Monday in the premier scientific journal Cell, examined dairy residues recovered from the Xiaohe cemetery in the hyper-arid Tarim Basin of Xinjiang. Thanks to the desert's extreme dryness and saline conditions, the organic specimens survived with unprecedented molecular fidelity.
Unlocking Ancient Dairy DNA in the Taklamakan Desert
Geneticists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences revealed that the substance was a soft fermented cheese made using symbiotic kefir grains, containing both cow and goat milk fermented with ancestral strains of the probiotic bacterium Lactobacillus kefiranofaciens and fermenting yeasts.
Prior to this breakthrough, historians debated whether kefir fermentation originated solely in the North Caucasus region or had multiple independent evolutionary routes across the Eurasian steppe. The genetic sequencing proved that East Asian kefir developed an independent evolutionary lineage over three millennia ago.
“This is the oldest known cheese specimen ever discovered in the world. Ancient DNA provides an unprecedented window into the diet, microbiology, and daily technology of prehistoric pastoralists.”
Evolutionary Journey of the Probiotic Microbe Lactobacillus
The genetic analysis also showed that ancient Lactobacillus strains had fewer antibiotic-resistance genes and different defense mechanisms against bacteriophages compared to modern industrial dairy bacteria.
Crucially, the fermentation process drastically reduced lactose levels in the raw milk, enabling lactose-intolerant Bronze Age pastoral communities to absorb vital dairy proteins and fats as they migrated across the prehistoric Silk Road.
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