{"id":21338,"date":"2026-06-03T17:50:32","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/scientists-find-yeast-in-ancient-icemans-guts-and-make-bread\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T17:50:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T17:50:32","slug":"scientists-find-yeast-in-ancient-icemans-guts-and-make-bread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/scientists-find-yeast-in-ancient-icemans-guts-and-make-bread\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists find yeast in ancient Iceman’s guts — and make bread"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yeast has been growing in the guts of a frozen mummy called Oetzi the Iceman for thousands of years, scientists have discovered, telling AFP they used it to make a tasty sourdough bread.<\/p>\n

More than 5,300 years ago — before the Egyptian pyramids were built — Oezti was strolling through the Alps on the border of Austria and Italy when he was killed by an arrow in the back.<\/p>\n

He remained frozen in the ice until two German hikers stumbled across his mummified remains in 1991 in the northern Italian region of South Tyrol.<\/p>\n

Since then, his stunningly well-preserved remains have been kept at the same temperature — minus six degrees Celsius — as his icy tomb.<\/p>\n

This has allowed scientists to carefully study Oetzi, who offers an incredibly rare window into ancient human life.<\/p>\n

For the latest research, published in the Microbiome journal on Wednesday, an Italy-based team found evidence that both ancient and modern microbial life remain active in the frozen body.<\/p>\n

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“What we didn’t expect to find was yeast,” lead study author Mohamed Sarhan of the Eurac Research institute in the Italian city of Bolzano told AFP.<\/p>\n

‘Very good sourdough’ <\/strong><\/h3>\n

The scientists discovered four different yeasts that can survive sub-zero temperatures in Oetzi’s guts, skin and “brownish” water that melted off his body when he was partially unfrozen.<\/p>\n

These kinds of yeast only live in very cold conditions such as Antarctica, so are believed to have entered Oetzi’s body at some point after he died.<\/p>\n

Genetic analysis revealed “DNA damage levels very comparable to the original microbes” in the Iceman’s guts, suggesting the yeast entered his body soon after death, Sarhan said.<\/p>\n

“These yeasts have accompanied Oetzi on his long journey through the millennia,” study co-author Frank Maixner said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The scientists then reproduced the gut yeast in a fridge.<\/p>\n

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“If you tell anyone you have yeast, they immediately ask: can we use it for bread?” Sarhan said.<\/p>\n

So they tried to make a sourdough loaf. “Initially it didn’t work,” the microbiologist admitted.<\/p>\n

But after three months of effort “we had a very, very good sourdough,” Sarhan said with a laugh.<\/p>\n

When asked if the scientists were considering using the yeast to brew beer, he responded: “It’s on the list.”<\/p>\n

The study contained more serious possible uses for the yeast.<\/p>\n

When the mummy was found in 1991, it was initially treated as a normal cadaver. A chemical called phenol was used to stop fungus from growing in the body.<\/p>\n

However, the strange yeast was able to eat the phenol, meaning that in the future it could help break down the chemical in contaminated environments, the scientists said.<\/p>\n

Inside the ancient microbiome <\/strong><\/h3>\n

The yeast was not the only surprising discovery in Oetzi’s body.<\/p>\n

An analysis of his microbiome revealed a particular kind of a gut bacteria that is almost non-existent among modern humans.<\/p>\n

Though gone from the stomachs of people in the industrialised world, the bacteria has been detected among tribes in Africa and South America, Sarhan said.<\/p>\n

It has also been found in 3,000-year-old feces preserved in a salt mine in Hallstatt, Austria — which serves as one of the only other available views into the ancient human microbiome.<\/p>\n

Oetzi and these Bronze Age salt miners ate more fiber and whole grain than modern-day people, Sarhan explained.<\/p>\n

The study said it “reveals that the Iceman is not a biologically ‘frozen’ time-capsule but rather a complex ecosystem”.<\/p>\n

It is too early to say whether the yeast is harming the mummy, Sarhan said, calling for more research.<\/p>\n

Nikolay Oskolkov, a researcher at the Latvian Institute of Organic Synthesis not involved in the study, told AFP it was interesting that “the Iceman’s microbiome is not ‘frozen.'”<\/p>\n

Oskolkov, who previously discovered ancient fungus in the mummy’s guts, cautioned that the yeast samples were only taken in 2010 and 2019.<\/p>\n

This provides “very little evidence that the yeasts have been multiplying over millennia,” he said, adding that he believed they were “relatively recent colonists of the mummy’s body”.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t© 2026 AFP<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Scientists find yeast in ancient Iceman’s guts — and make bread<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yeast has been growing in the guts of a frozen mummy called Oetzi the Iceman for thousands of years, scientists have discovered, telling AFP they used it to make a tasty sourdough bread. More than 5,300 years ago — before the Egyptian pyramids were built — Oezti was strolling through the Alps on the border…<\/p>\n

Read More “Scientists find yeast in ancient Iceman’s guts — and make bread”<\/span> »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jobuzo.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}