Cheese has been around for thousands of years, and its origin is a bit of a mystery. Historians believe cheese was discovered accidentally by ancient people who were storing milk in containers made from animal stomachs. The natural rennet in the stomach lining could have caused the milk to curdle and separate into curds and whey.
People likely tasted the curds and found them to be a delicious, more solid version of milk, and that's how cheese might have been born. It's believed that this first discovery happened sometime around 8000 BCE, when humans began domesticating animals like cows.
As people realized they could make cheese, they started experimenting with different types of milk and methods of preparation. The earliest cheese makers were probably nomadic herders in the Middle East or Central Asia.