Cheesemaking dates back nearly 7,000 years

Cheese fanciers probably date back at least 7,000 years.

Aardman Animations / Aurich Lawson

Milk fat on 7,000-year old pieces of pottery from Northern Europe provide the earliest evidence that prehistoric people knew how to process perishable milk into transportable and longer-lasting cheese.

Milk residue has been found in pots from Libya nearly 7,000 years old and on 8,000-year old pots from Northwestern Anatolia, a region that roughly corresponds to modern-day Turkey. That provided evidence that people in those areas used milk, but it wasn’t clear if they processed it into cheese by separating the milk proteins and fat from the liquid.

Some prehistoric vessels, however, resemble modern cheesemaking equipment. Thirty years ago, archeologists proposed that sieve-like pots were used to separate the chunky curds from the liquid whey. Those curds could then be worked into cheese. But others thought these sieves may have been used for beer making or to strain honey.