Is This the World’s Oldest Cheese-making Equipment?

Little Miss Muffet, eating her curds and whey, probably did not know that cheese was originally produced more than 7,500 years ago.

Researchers from Britain, the United States and Poland analyzed residue embedded in pottery found in the Polish region of Kuyavia. They found the pottery fragments, which were perforated much like sieves used today, contained fatty acids consistent with the production of curds and whey.

Turning milk into cheese has several advantages. Cheese is more easily stored than milk, which helped add to early man’s ability to store food. It is believed that most people of the time would have been lactose intolerant. Curds contain far less lactose than whole milk and are rich in fat, which is a valuable source of energy. The whey is rich in lactose, which can be thrown away or used for animal feed.

Cheese-making, of course, had to wait until milk-producing animals such as cows and goats were domesticated. Before then, milking an aurochs or wild goat would have proven hazardous at best.
Evidence of milk production and storage has been found at 8,000-year old sites in Turkey and Libya, but there was no evidence at any of these sites that any of the milk had been made into cheese.

It is not known at present what the source of the milk was. People living around the world today harvest milk from horses, cows, goats, and other local domesticated animals.

The more we learn about the food producing capabilities of our distant ancestors, the more our respect for the ingenuity and sophistication of these people grows. How much more of our "modern" inventions and practices really had its origins in the ancient world?