Lumps of kefir-fermented cheese found on the necks and chests of mummies buried in the Xiaohe cemetery in the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang, China, date to about 1615 BCE, roughly 3,600 years ago, the oldest cheese ever found. The analysis was published by Yang and colleagues in the Journal of Archaeological Science in 2014.
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Lumps of kefir-fermented cheese found on the necks and chests of mummies buried in the Xiaohe cemetery in the Tarim Basin of Xinjiang, China, date to about 1615 BCE, roughly 3,600 years ago, the oldest cheese ever found. The analysis was published by Yang and colleagues in the Journal of Archaeological Science in 2014.
The greatest age of preserved food remains chemically identified as cheese.
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Permanent ID limitsregistry.com/limits/LR-OLDEST-KNOWN-CHEESE
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Limits Registry. LR-OLDEST-KNOWN-CHEESE. Oldest known cheese. 2026.