Earliest date for milk use in the Near East and southeastern Europe linked to cattle herding (original) (raw)
Related papers
The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium BC 1–3. Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals—that is, traction and wool—the first clear evidence for these appears much later, from the late fifth and fourth millennia BC 4,5. Hence, the timing and region in which milking was first practised remain unknown. Organic residues preserved in archaeological pottery 6,7 have provided direct evidence for the use of milk in the fourth millennium in Britain 7–9 , and in the sixth millennium in eastern Europe 10 , based on the d 13 C values of the major fatty acids of milk fat 6,7. Here we apply this approach to more than 2,200 pottery vessels from sites in the Near East and southeastern Europe dating from the fifth to the seventh millennia BC. We show that milk was in use by the seventh millennium ; this is the earliest direct evidence to date. Milking was particularly important in northwestern Anatolia, pointing to regional differences linked with conditions more favourable to cattle compared to other regions, where sheep and goats were relatively common and milk use less important. The latter is supported by correlations between the fat type and animal bone evidence. The use of milk, wool and traction, so-called 'secondary' products, obtained from domestic animals without killing them, marks an important step in the history of domestication 4,5. But evidence for when and how this first happened is inconclusive. Some researchers have argued that once animals were domesticated the potential benefits of these products would have been exploited rapidly 11. Others have pointed to the late appearance of unequivocal evidence—that is, representations of milking scenes, carts and ploughs—and to barriers , such as lactose intolerance in humans, suggesting that early domestication was predominantly for meat and hides, postulating a 'secondary products revolution' during the fifth or fourth millennium BC, 2,000–4,000 years after the first domestication of cattle, sheep and goats in the Near East and Europe 5,12. Evidence provided by figurines and pictures of animals before 4000 BC, and from artefacts (for example, ceramic strainers), has been variously interpreted 13 , as has evidence from animal bone assemblages, especially the ages at which animals were killed, taken as reflecting what they were kept for and how they were managed 14–16. The analysis of lipid residues from pottery, particularly our discovery that ruminant milk fatty acids can be distinguished from those of carcass fats, provided a new tool for detecting early milk use 6,7. The approach rests upon differences in the d 13 C value of the C 18:0 (in C x:y , x is the number of carbon atoms in the fatty acid, and y is the number of double bonds) fatty acid of milk and carcass fats. This arises from a greater proportion of dietary carbohydrate-derived carbon being used in the biosynthesis of carcass fat C 18:0 , compared to milk fat, up to 40% of which derives from biohydrogenated dietary unsat-urated C 18 fatty acids (C 18:3, C 18:2 and C 18:1) 17,18. Using this approach, we recently provided evidence for widespread milk use at some of the earliest Neolithic sites in southern Britain 7–9. However, these sites, dating to the early fourth millennium BC, are late in relation to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the Near East and southern and central Europe. The same technique has also provided evidence for milk use in Romania before 5000 BC 10. Reported here are results from analyses of organic residues from sherds of pottery vessels from fifth-to seventh-millennium BC sites in southeastern Europe, Anatolia and the Levant. Vessels most likely to have been used for food preparation were selected to test where milk use started, and whether the use of milk products first began in the region where farming was pioneered, namely within the Fertile Crescent, or whether it was an innovation of other regions. Figure 1 shows the locations of the 23 sites from which the sherds were sampled. The results of the analyses of 2,225 sherds are summarized in Table 1 and Figs 2 and 3; 12% of the sherds (255) yielded sufficient residue for compound-specific stable carbon isotope analysis. Typical gas chromatographic profiles of the residues displayed in Fig. 2 show that the C 16:0 and C 18:0 fatty acids predominate, the high abundance of the latter confirming that the residues derive from animal fats. Mean lipid concentrations varied over the range 0.54– 1.74 mg per g sherd. The lower concentrations and incidences of lipid residues in these assemblages, compared to pottery from northern European sites, probably relates to differences in vessel use, clay type, the greater age of the pottery and/or degradative factors associated
Earliest date for milk use in the Near East and
The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium BC 1-3 . Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals-that is, traction and wool-the first clear evidence for these appears much later, from the late fifth and fourth millennia BC 4,5 . Hence, the timing and region in which milking was first practised remain unknown. Organic residues preserved in archaeological pottery 6,7 have provided direct evidence for the use of milk in the fourth millennium in Britain 7-9 , and in the sixth millennium in eastern Europe 10 , based on the d 13 C values of the major fatty acids of milk fat 6,7 . Here we apply this approach to more than 2,200 pottery vessels from sites in the Near East and southeastern Europe dating from the fifth to the seventh millennia BC. We show that milk was in use by the seventh millennium; this is the earliest direct evidence to date. Milking was particularly important in northwestern Anatolia, pointing to regional differences linked with conditions more favourable to cattle compared to other regions, where sheep and goats were relatively common and milk use less important. The latter is supported by correlations between the fat type and animal bone evidence.
Archaeology: The milk revoultion
The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium BC 1-3 . Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals-that is, traction and wool-the first clear evidence for these appears much later, from the late fifth and fourth millennia BC 4,5 . Hence, the timing and region in which milking was first practised remain unknown. Organic residues preserved in archaeological pottery 6,7 have provided direct evidence for the use of milk in the fourth millennium in Britain 7-9 , and in the sixth millennium in eastern Europe 10 , based on the d 13 C values of the major fatty acids of milk fat 6,7 . Here we apply this approach to more than 2,200 pottery vessels from sites in the Near East and southeastern Europe dating from the fifth to the seventh millennia BC. We show that milk was in use by the seventh millennium; this is the earliest direct evidence to date. Milking was particularly important in northwestern Anatolia, pointing to regional differences linked with conditions more favourable to cattle compared to other regions, where sheep and goats were relatively common and milk use less important. The latter is supported by correlations between the fat type and animal bone evidence.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Direct, accurate, and precise dating of archaeological pottery vessels is now achievable using a recently developed approach based on the radiocarbon dating of purified molecular components of food residues preserved in the walls of pottery vessels. The method targets fatty acids from animal fat residues, making it uniquely suited for directly dating the inception of new food commodities in prehistoric populations. Here, we report a large-scale application of the method by directly dating the introduction of dairying into Central Europe by the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) cultural group based on dairy fat residues. The radiocarbon dates ( n = 27) from the 54th century BC from the western and eastern expansion of the LBK suggest dairy exploitation arrived with the first settlers in the respective regions and were not gradually adopted later. This is particularly significant, as contemporaneous LBK sites showed an uneven distribution of dairy exploitation. Significantly, our findings demon...
Some reflections on the origins and intensification of dairying in the archaeological record
Animal Secondary Products: Domestic Animal Exploitation in Prehistoric Europe, the Near East and the Far East, 2014
Our conception of the origins of dairying has swung back and forth dramatically over the past 50 years. Today, it is almost universally recognized that dairying has its origins in the Neolithic. However, during the Chalcolithic, the scale of milk production dramatically increases. This paper will review the history of research on the origins of dairying conducted by archaeologists and zooarchaeologists, discuss various theoretical and methodological issues related to the testing for the presence of early dairying, and synthesis the data from various domains (genetic, osteological, and artefactual) in order to discuss the difference between initial origins, spread, and widespread intensification of milk production from domestic animals. Data from both Europe and Near East will be discussed.
Milk and molecules: secrets from prehistoric pottery
Fragments of Lives Past: archaeological objects from Irish road schemes, 2014
The Neolithic period is synonymous with a major step in human development – the domestication of plants and animals and the beginning of farming. In Europe, the shift to agriculture starts around 7000 cal BC, spreading across the continent over several thousand years. The island of Ireland lies geographically and chronologically at the end of this trajectory, in the centuries around 4000 cal BC. As in many parts of Europe, pottery appears in Ireland at the same time as farming, and examining the contents of pottery vessels can provide great insight into the lifestyles of early farming communities. SCHERD (a Study of Cuisine and animal Husbandry among Early farmers via Residue analysis and radiocarbon Dating) is a recently completed two-year research project based at the Organic Geochemistry Unit, University of Bristol, which saw the systematic analysis of ancient organic residues in nearly 500 pots from fifteen Irish Neolithic sites (c. 4000 – 2500 cal BC). Eight of these fifteen sites were recently excavated along Irish road schemes. Molecular and stable isotope analyses undertaken on the fat residues preserved in these pots have firmly established that dairying was taking place in early Neolithic Ireland. Indeed, current evidence indicates that by the time farming arrives at the western edge of Europe, i.e. the islands of Britain and Ireland, dairying is a key—perhaps even the primary— component of farming practice. T
World Archaeology, 2015
The origins of secondary product exploitation for domestic livestock, in particular milking, is a longstanding debate in archaeology. This paper re-analyses zooarchaeological age-at-death data from the central Balkans of south eastern Europe to demonstrate that the earliest intensive milking in this region probably occurred through the exploitation of goats, and not cattle or sheep, and that they were exploited in this manner from the beginning of the Neolithic. The analyses also suggest that there is a change in cattle and sheep exploitation patterns beginning during the Eneolithic, when secondary product exploitation becomes visible in age-at-death patterns, which can be interpreted as an increased scale of secondary products exploitation. This proposal is congruent with the ceramic lipid and zooarchaeological data from the region and has larger implications for understanding and identifying the origins of milking throughout the Old World.
Analyses of organic residues preserved in ceramic potsherds enable the identification of foodstuffs processed in rchaeological vessels. Differences in the isotopic composition of fatty acids allow differentiation of non-ruminant and ruminant fats, as well as adipose and dairy fats. This paper investigates the trends in milk use in areas where sheep and goats are dominant in the faunal assemblage and in some sites from the inearbandkeramik culture. Sites include: Colle Santo Stefano, Abruzzo, Italy, and the Oldest to Young Linearbandkeramik sites of Zwenkau, Eythra and Brodau, Saxony, and Wang and Niederhummel, Bavaria, Germany. More than 160 potsherds were investigated including cooking pots, bowls, jars, and ceramic sieves. The lipid residues presented provide direct evidence for the processing of ruminant and non-ruminant commodities at Zwenkau and Eythra, despite the absence of faunal remains at the sites. No dairy residues were detected in potsherds from LBK sites, except in a ceramic sieve at Brodau. Lipids from non-ruminant and ruminant fats, including from dairy fats, were detected at the site of Colle Santo Stefano showing a reliance on dairy products during the first half of the sixth millennium at this site; where sheep and goats were the major domestic animals.
Neolithic dairy farming at the extreme of agriculture in northern Europe
The conventional 'Neolithic package' comprised animals and plants originally domesticated in the Near East. As farming spread on a generally northwest trajectory across Europe, early pastoralists would have been faced with the challenge of making farming viable in regions in which the organisms were poorly adapted to providing optimal yields or even surviving. Hence, it has long been debated whether Neolithic economies were ever established at the modern limits of agriculture. Here, we examine food residues in pottery, testing a hypothesis that Neolithic farming was practiced beyond the 60th parallel north. Our findings, based on diagnostic biomarker lipids and d 13 C values of preserved fatty acids, reveal a transition at ca 2500 BC from the exploitation of aquatic organisms to processing of ruminant products, specifically milk, confirming farming was practiced at high latitudes. Combining this with genetic, environmental and archaeological information, we demonstrate the origins of dairying probably accompanied an incoming, genetically distinct, population successfully establishing this new subsistence 'package'.
Milk of ruminants in ceramic baby bottles from prehistoric child graves
Nature, 2019
The study of childhood diet, including breastfeeding and weaning, has important implications for our understanding of infant mortality and fertility in past societies. Stable isotope analyses of nitrogen from bone collagen and dentine samples of infants have provided information on the timing of weaning; however, little is known about which foods were consumed by infants in prehistory. The earliest known clay vessels that were possibly used for feeding infants appear in Neolithic Europe, and become more common throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages. However, these vessels—which include a spout through which liquid could be poured—have also been suggested to be feeding vessels for the sick or infirm. Here we report evidence for the foods that were contained in such vessels, based on analyses of the lipid ‘fingerprints’ and the compound-specific δ13C and Δ13C values of the major fatty acids of residues from three small, spouted vessels that were found in Bronze and Iron Age graves of infants in Bavaria. The results suggest that the vessels were used to feed infants with milk products derived from ruminants. This evidence of the foodstuffs that were used to either feed or wean prehistoric infants confirms the importance of milk from domesticated animals for these early communities, and provides information on the infant-feeding behaviours that were practised by prehistoric human groups.