The world’s oldest cheese sheds light on ancient Chinese culture

FOR MORE than 3,500 years the mummified remains of the Xiaohe people lay undisturbed in a desert cemetery in Xinjiang in western China. Then, in 1979, a team of archaeologists got their hands on them. Among the treasures they dug up were mysterious white lumps strewn across the mummies’ necks: chunks of the oldest preserved cheese in the world.