When Did Humans First Drink Milk From Other Animals

milk protien dental calculus.jpg — Archaeologists found traces of a milk protein in vii prehistoric Britons' calcified dental plaque Sophy Charlton/Dorset County Museum

A new analysis of Neolithic farmers' dental plaque suggests milk has been a staple in humans' diets for millennia. Equally researchers led by Sophy Charlton of England'southward University of York study in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences , traces of beta lactoglobulin—a protein present in cow, sheep and goat milk—entombed in prehistoric Britons' plaque correspond the earliest direct show of milk consumption found to date.

According to Atlas Obscura's Anne Ewbank, Charlton and her colleagues tested ten sets of teeth unearthed at three Neolithic sites across southern England: Hambledon Loma, Hazleton North and Banbury Lane. Using mass spectrometry analysis, the team identified peptides from the beta lactoglobulin protein in seven of these individuals' calcified plaque. Although the exact type of milk consumed at each settlement remains unclear, sure peptides points toward Hambledon Hill's predilection for goat milk and Hazelton North'due south preference for cow or sheep milk. According to the study, yet, zooarchaeological prove recovered at the sites remains "about consequent" with cattle milk.

"The fact that we plant this protein in the dental calculus of individuals from three different Neolithic sites may suggest that dairy consumption was a widespread dietary practice in the by," Charlton says in a printing release.

Crucially, Paul Rincon writes for BBC News, the bulk of Neolithic Europeans—including the British farmers featured in the report—were lactose intolerant, making it difficult for them to drink milk without experiencing unpleasant side effects. The ability to break down lactose sugar in milk is a relatively modern i: Equally the study notes, just v to 10 percentage of Europeans possessed the genetic mutation responsible for this process past the Bronze Age, which lasted from around 3,000 to 1,000 B.C. (In Uk, the preceding Neolithic catamenia ran from iv,000 to ii,400 B.C. and saw the rise of such practices every bit farming, animal domestication and monument building.)

To cope with their lactose intolerance, early Britons may take imbibed small amounts of milk at a time or, in a more than plausible scenario, processed the drink to reduce its lactose content. "If yous process [milk] into a cheese, or a fermented milk product, or a yogurt, then information technology does subtract the lactose content so you [tin can] more than easily digest information technology," Charlton tells BBC News.

Dairy fats and milk residue discovered in Neolithic pottery across the European continent support this theory, offering evidence of heating and other forms of milk product processing. At Hambledon Loma specifically, the archaeologists write in the study, more than a quarter of pottery fragments recovered held traces of milk lipids.

Prior research has pinpointed the origins of milk consumption to thousands of years before these British farmers arrived on the scene. In 2016, for example, a written report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences drew on prehistoric pottery discovered in the northern Mediterranean to posit that the practice started as early every bit 9,000 years agone. Still, Atlas Obscura's Ewbank explains, the new analysis is the first to describe on human remains to directly date milk consumption to the Neolithic catamenia.

Moving forrad, the researchers hope to appraise whether members of prehistoric societies "consumed differential amounts of dairy products or dairy from dissimilar animals" on the basis of sex, gender, age or social standing. Additionally, Charlton says in the statement, "Identifying more ancient individuals with evidence of [the milk poly peptide] in the futurity may … increment our agreement of how genetics and civilisation accept interacted to produce lactase persistence."

Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/prehistoric-farmers-teeth-show-humans-were-drinking-animal-milk-6000-years-ago-180973101/

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