(STUDY FINDS) – Ancient poop fossils are helping researchers uncover some surprising details about the lives of Europeans thousands of years ago. The new study has discovered that miners in what is now present-day Austria had a diet that many people might recognize today — 2,700 years later. An international team found two fungal species in these fossils which humans use to make beer and blue cheese.
The human feces fossils come from the prehistoric salt mines of the Austrian UNESCO World Heritage area Hallstatt-Dachstein/Salzkammergut.
“Genome-wide analysis indicates that both fungi were involved in food fermentation and provide the first molecular evidence for blue cheese and beer consumption during Iron Age Europe,” says Frank Maixner of the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies in a media release.