Is Poland the ancient cradle of cheese-making?

photo: wikipedia

“This research provides the smoking gun that cheese manufacture was practised by Neolithic people 7,000 years ago,” claims Princeton archaeologist Peter Bogucki, in an interview with scientific journal Nature.

Bogucki got on the trail after archaeologists working at ancient cattle-rearing sites in what is now the Kujawy region of north central Poland found ceramic vessels with holes that were akin to cheese strainers.

The Princeton academic joined forces with Melanie Salque, a chemist at Bristol University, south west England, who has been writing her PhD on the emergence of milk production in Neolithic Europe.

Salque analysed molecules preserved in the clay of the Kujawy vessels, using gas chromatography and carbon-isotope ratios. The research confirmed the presence of milk fats.

Professor Richard Evershed, Salque's PhD supervisor, believes that a major breakthrough has been made in the subject.

“This is the first and only evidence of [Neolithic] cheese-making in the archaeological record,” he affirmed.

“It’s building a picture for me, as a European, of where we came from: the origins of our culture and cuisines,” he says. (nh)