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Scientists baked sourdough with yeast from a 5,300-year-old mummy

Ellsworth Toohey
Jul 16, 2026
∙ Paid

Ötzi the Iceman — Wolfgang Sauber / CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wikimedia Commons)

Ötzi the Iceman died in the Alps roughly 5,300 years ago, and researchers have now used yeast recovered from his frozen body to bake sourdough bread. According to Smithsonian magazine, a team at Eurac Research’s Institute for Mummy Studies found four cold-adapted yeast strains clinging …

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