THE EARLIEST DAIRY PRODUCTION FOUND IN BURSA AS ARCHEOLOGISTS SAY...

The earliest known production of dairy products has been identified by archeologists in the Yenişehir district of Bursa in northwestern Turkey.

Archeologists digging at the Barcın Mound found that cheese, yogurt and butter were first produced 8,600 years ago during the Neolithic Era. Barcın Höyük is one of the earliest farming communities in northwestern Turkey, going back to more than 8,000 years ago.

The archeological excavations at the Yenişehir site began in 2009 with the contributions of Koç, Boğaziçi and Ege Universities and were completed under the Netherlands Institute in Turkey with the permission of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The digs at Barcın Mound have uncovered information about the earliest inhabitants of the Yenişehir Plain, the archeological team said.

Rana Özbal, a researcher from Koç University Department of Archeology and Art History who is working on the excavations, said that the earliest production of dairy products has been scientifically proven at the ancient site.

Özbal said that besides the upper levels from the Byzantine, Early Bronze Age and Late Chalcolithic periods, the best preserved and therefore most extensively studied layer of the mound dates back to the Neolithic Period, from 6,600-6,000 B.C.