Earliest Direct Evidence Of Milk Consumption
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ramonmercado
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And early baby bottles.
Three spouted vessels from graves in ancient European cemeteries may have come from the mouths of babes.
Chemical signs of nonhuman animal milk in the artifacts suggest that the small clay containers, previously found in three children’s graves in southeastern Germany, represent early versions of baby bottles, researchers report. Spouts on these types of pots would have delivered milk to babies and young children during weaning, biomolecular archaeologist Julie Dunne of the University of Bristol in England and colleagues conclude September 25 in Nature.
Two of the graves where the newly analyzed vessels were found date to between around 2,800 and 2,450 years ago. The third burial dates to between about 3,200 and 2,800 years ago. Two of the youngsters died at around age 1 or 2; the other might have been as old as 6.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/baby-bottles-milk-may-go-back-millennia-europe
Three spouted vessels from graves in ancient European cemeteries may have come from the mouths of babes.
Chemical signs of nonhuman animal milk in the artifacts suggest that the small clay containers, previously found in three children’s graves in southeastern Germany, represent early versions of baby bottles, researchers report. Spouts on these types of pots would have delivered milk to babies and young children during weaning, biomolecular archaeologist Julie Dunne of the University of Bristol in England and colleagues conclude September 25 in Nature.
Two of the graves where the newly analyzed vessels were found date to between around 2,800 and 2,450 years ago. The third burial dates to between about 3,200 and 2,800 years ago. Two of the youngsters died at around age 1 or 2; the other might have been as old as 6.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/baby-bottles-milk-may-go-back-millennia-europe
ramonmercado
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Lactose tolerance spread relatively quickly.
It only took a few thousand years for the human ability to digest the milk sugar lactose, after infancy, to spread throughout Central Europe, a study suggests.
Researchers analysed genetic material from the bones of individuals who had fallen in a conflict around 1200 BC on the banks of the Tollense, a river in present-day Germany. They found that around one in eight of the assumed warriors had a gene variant that enabled them to break down the lactose in milk.
Population geneticist Professor Joachim Burger, of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), said: “Of the present-day population living in this same area, around 90% have this lactase persistence.
“This is a huge difference when you consider that there cannot be many more than 120 human generations between then and today.”
https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40042994.html
It only took a few thousand years for the human ability to digest the milk sugar lactose, after infancy, to spread throughout Central Europe, a study suggests.
Researchers analysed genetic material from the bones of individuals who had fallen in a conflict around 1200 BC on the banks of the Tollense, a river in present-day Germany. They found that around one in eight of the assumed warriors had a gene variant that enabled them to break down the lactose in milk.
Population geneticist Professor Joachim Burger, of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), said: “Of the present-day population living in this same area, around 90% have this lactase persistence.
“This is a huge difference when you consider that there cannot be many more than 120 human generations between then and today.”
https://www.irishexaminer.com/world/arid-40042994.html
ramonmercado
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Date gets pushed further back.
Our history with milk presents a chicken-or-egg conundrum: Humans couldn’t digest the beverage before they evolved mutations that helped them do so, yet they had to already be consuming milk to change their DNA. “There’s always been the question of which came first,” says University of Pennsylvania geneticist Sarah Tishkoff. “The cultural practice or the mutation.”
Now, scientists have found the oldest evidence yet for dairy drinking: People in modern Kenya and Sudan were ingesting milk products beginning at least 6000 years ago. That’s before humans evolved the “milk gene,” suggesting we were drinking the liquid before we had the genetic tools to properly digest it.
All humans can digest milk in infancy. But the ability to do so as an adult developed fairly recently, likely in the past 6000 years. A handful of mutations allows adults to produce the enzyme lactase, which can break down the milk sugar lactose. Genes that enable what’s called lactase persistence are widespread in modern Africa, which has four known lactase persistence mutations. (European populations rely on just one.) ...
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/humans-were-drinking-milk-they-could-digest-it
Our history with milk presents a chicken-or-egg conundrum: Humans couldn’t digest the beverage before they evolved mutations that helped them do so, yet they had to already be consuming milk to change their DNA. “There’s always been the question of which came first,” says University of Pennsylvania geneticist Sarah Tishkoff. “The cultural practice or the mutation.”
Now, scientists have found the oldest evidence yet for dairy drinking: People in modern Kenya and Sudan were ingesting milk products beginning at least 6000 years ago. That’s before humans evolved the “milk gene,” suggesting we were drinking the liquid before we had the genetic tools to properly digest it.
All humans can digest milk in infancy. But the ability to do so as an adult developed fairly recently, likely in the past 6000 years. A handful of mutations allows adults to produce the enzyme lactase, which can break down the milk sugar lactose. Genes that enable what’s called lactase persistence are widespread in modern Africa, which has four known lactase persistence mutations. (European populations rely on just one.) ...
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/humans-were-drinking-milk-they-could-digest-it
ramonmercado
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Earliest date now pushed further back.
Ancient Europeans may have evolved an ability to digest milk thanks to periodic famines and disease outbreaks.
Europeans avidly tapped into milk drinking starting around 9,000 years ago, when dairying groups first reached the continent’s southeastern corner, researchers report July 27 in Nature. Yet it took several thousand years before large numbers of Europeans evolved a gene for digesting lactose, the sugar in milk, the investigators say.
These discoveries — based on animal fat residue samples from hundreds of archaeological sites and a trove of DNA data — undermine an influential idea that milk use dramatically increased as the product’s nutritional and health benefits drove the evolution of lactose tolerance, say biogeochemist Richard Evershed of the University of Bristol in England and colleagues.
Milk drinkers who can’t digest lactose experience diarrhea, gas, bloating and intestinal cramps. Those uncomfortable reactions were too mild to move the evolutionary needle toward lactose tolerance on their own, Evershed’s group says. But during periodic famines and infectious disease outbreaks, lactose-induced diarrhea became fatal for severely malnourished individuals in farming communities, the scientists suggest. Those recurring threats hotwired the evolution of lactose tolerance, they contend. ...
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lactose-tolerance-milk-famine-disease-ancient-europe
Ancient Europeans may have evolved an ability to digest milk thanks to periodic famines and disease outbreaks.
Europeans avidly tapped into milk drinking starting around 9,000 years ago, when dairying groups first reached the continent’s southeastern corner, researchers report July 27 in Nature. Yet it took several thousand years before large numbers of Europeans evolved a gene for digesting lactose, the sugar in milk, the investigators say.
These discoveries — based on animal fat residue samples from hundreds of archaeological sites and a trove of DNA data — undermine an influential idea that milk use dramatically increased as the product’s nutritional and health benefits drove the evolution of lactose tolerance, say biogeochemist Richard Evershed of the University of Bristol in England and colleagues.
Milk drinkers who can’t digest lactose experience diarrhea, gas, bloating and intestinal cramps. Those uncomfortable reactions were too mild to move the evolutionary needle toward lactose tolerance on their own, Evershed’s group says. But during periodic famines and infectious disease outbreaks, lactose-induced diarrhea became fatal for severely malnourished individuals in farming communities, the scientists suggest. Those recurring threats hotwired the evolution of lactose tolerance, they contend. ...
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lactose-tolerance-milk-famine-disease-ancient-europe
Paul_Exeter
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When I was at Uni I had a housemate who was Chinese (Hong Kong) and I noticed a lot of the food he was buying and sent to him from home had cow's milk powder and other forms of lactose in it, despite my understanding that people of Asian decent did not genetically have lactose tolerance. Seems I was right and that milk is being pushed as a 'Western lifestyle' product:
"People of European descent are somewhat unusual in that they mostly continue to digest dairy effortlessly as adults. In China, a much-cited study estimated that 92% of adults had trouble absorbing lactose; more recently, China’s preventative medicine agency suggested that by the time kids are 11 to 13 years old, around 40% have lost the ability to digest it."
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201016-why-china-developed-a-fresh-taste-for-milk
"People of European descent are somewhat unusual in that they mostly continue to digest dairy effortlessly as adults. In China, a much-cited study estimated that 92% of adults had trouble absorbing lactose; more recently, China’s preventative medicine agency suggested that by the time kids are 11 to 13 years old, around 40% have lost the ability to digest it."
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201016-why-china-developed-a-fresh-taste-for-milk
