historical-nonfiction:

In 1984, Peter Bogucki had a groundbreaking theory. He posited that the development of cheese-making in Europe — a critical indicator of an agricultural revolution — occurred thousands of years earlier than scientists generally believed. Bogucki based this on a study of perforated potsherds (like the one above) he had helped recover from dig sites in Poland. But there was a problem. Despite some well-done arguments, it was impossible to prove the bits of pottery were the remains of a cheese maker, rather than some other type of strainer.

So Bogucki’s theory remained just that, an unproven theory, for decades. Then in the early 2010s the University of Bristol decided to try a new type of test to measure ancient molecular remnants left within the pottery. What did they find but lots and lots of dairy lipids! What are dairy lipids, I hear you ask? Dairy lipids are a type of molecule signaling milk processing. The presence of milk processing byproducts found in the pottery provides compelling evidence that farmers used the perforated pots to separate cheese curds from whey. Thirty years later, Bogucki’s theory is upheld.