DNA from world’s oldest cheese extracted from an unusual source – mummies

(NEW YORK POST) – It’s aged – 3,600 years. Scientists have successfully pulled a DNA strand from what they believe to be the world’s oldest cheese, yanking it from Bronze Age mummies in a Chinese graveyard, circa 2,000 B.C.

The dairy delight is kefir cheese – a modern-day cream cheese health substitute – and was found strangely smeared or “scattered” around the heads and necks of preserved corpses, dating between 3,300 to 3,600 years ago, in northwest China’s Tarim Basin, according to research published in the journal Cell.

Specifically, it had coated the necks and heads of several members of the deceased inside a cemetery of the Xiaohe people. Although the white-colored substance was first observed two decades ago, only recently was it confirmed to be pasta’s favorite topping.