Context: A new study of Indus Valley Civilisation has shown that dairy products were being produced by the Harappans as far back as 2500 BCE.
Key findings of the evidence

• The findings are based on analysis of the absorbed lipid residues in unglazed ceramic vessels. 
• In simpler terms, this means that residues of fatty acids –– organic compounds found in plant and animal products ––which had been absorbed into pottery remnants found at archaeological sites were extracted and analysed to identify what the people who used these vessels might have eaten.
• Among other types of food is evidence of dairy processing, that is, the preservation of milk through fermentation and other techniques.

About the study

• The studies were carried out on 59 shards of pottery from Kotada Bhadli, a small archaeological site in present-day Gujarat.
• The study has also thrown light on the types of animals that were being used for dairy production. These included Cows, water buffalo, goat and sheep.
• The large herd in the IVC indicates that milk was produced in surplus so that it could be exchanged and there could have been some kind of trade between settlements. This could have given rise to an industrial level of dairy exploitation.
• This finding throws fresh light on the rural economy of the civilisation.

Significance of the finding

• The significance of the finding lies in the revelation that cheese was very likely made and consumed in the subcontinent during what is known as the Mature Harappan period. This would make it the earliest evidence of cheese-making in the region.

Until now, there has only been speculation about when cheese was first made in the subcontinent, with food historian KT Achaya noting in his book, Indian Food: A Historical Companion (1994), that references to what may be cheese appear during the Vedic period: 

• “Two forms, with and without hotels, of dadhanwat are noted; these may be paneer and ripened cheese respectively.”

In the same book, Achaya notes the existence of “the Aryan taboo on deliberate milk curdling”. 

• He speculates that the taboo may have been lifted when the Portuguese, who came to India in the 16th century and had formed settlements by the mid-17th century, made cottage cheese, which they loved, by “‘breaking’ milk with acidic materials”.