quote:BRISTOL: Sophisticated chemical analyses have provided the first unequivocal evidence that humans in prehistoric Saharan Africa were milking cows nearly 7,000 years ago.
The research, led by scientists at the University of Bristol, UK, not only proves the importance of dairying to these ancient cultures, it provides further context for the origins of lactose tolerance within some modern cultures.
It’s the latest piece of the puzzle that Bristol scientists have been building on the adoption of early dairying practices in ancient human cultures.
“We already know how important dairy products such as milk, cheese, yoghurt and butter, which can be repeatedly extracted from an animal throughout its lifetime, were to the people of Neolithic Europe,” said Julie Dunne, a PhD student in Bristol's School of Chemistry and lead author on the study. “So it's exciting to find proof that they were also significant in the lives of the prehistoric people of Africa.”
The proof is in the pot
The study, published today in Nature, was carried out using pot fragments, dating from around 7,000 years ago, found at the Takarkori rock shelter in the Tadrart Acacus Mountains, Libya.
This region, which has been extensively studied by coauthors on the study from Sapienza, University of Rome, is rich in engraved and painted rock art that portrays the importance of domestic animals, particularly cattle, to these pre-historic people.
Some of the art depicts animals with full udders, and in rare cases, the act of milking. However, despite this suggestive evidence of early dairying, it is difficult to date the art, making it inconclusive.
The team at Bristol used a suite of molecular and stable isotopic techniques to examine the preserved organic residues held within the fabric of the ancient pottery. They linked the carbon isotope signature to the molecular structure of the fatty acids to conclusively show the pots had once contained dairy products.
“We use the isotope signal to distinguish between dairy fat and body fat of ruminant animals,” said Dunne. “The routing of the dietary carbon that the animal uptakes, gives a different isotope signature in milk than it does in the body fat.”
Not only do the analyses show that the fat residues are from milk, they are also consistent with processed dairy products, such as yoghurt or cheese. These results provide an explanation of how early humans, who were lactose intolerant, were able to consume milk products and make use of this valuable resource.
"Marvelous example of selection"
Despite the dietary benefits of milk, most adults are incapable of processing the milk sugar, lactose. In adulthood, the body stops producing lactase, the enzyme necessary for the breakdown of lactose during digestion.
However, people of European ancestry and some African and Middle Eastern groups, have evolved lactase persistence where lactase continues to be produced into adulthood. Lactase persistence seems to have arisen once early humans started to consume milk products.
“It’s such a marvelous example of selection,” said Dunne. “Milk is so good for us in calorific terms and yet it’s bad for our bodies. So, evolution kicks in and within a relatively short period of time, a couple thousand years, humans evolve a gene that allows us to drink milk.”
Multiple gene forms for lactase persistence are found in modern African groups, whereas only one gene form exists among Europeans.
“The article is quite exciting because it confirms what other evidence, the rock art and indigenous African mutations for lactose tolerance in adults, has suggested,” said anthropologist Diane Gifford-Gonzalez, from the University of California, Santa Cruz in the U.S., who was not involved in the study but who’s own research interests include African archaeology.
“This is potentially the beginning of a chronological map of the spread of dairying in Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa, of the sort developed by the Bristol team for western Eurasia.
posted
^ I can't consume Cow's milk. Neither can anyone in my family because of the lactose. I'll bet Lion's milk is better and like Goat's milk, far more beneficial than Cow's milk. Goat's milk has far more protein than Cow's milk and less lactose. Probably why only a small fraction of the African population initially consumed Cow's milk. Recent medical studies now show Cow's milk as being a major contributor of Diabetes, MS, and other human diseases.
-------------------- Selenium gives real life and true reality Posts: 4693 | From: Saturn | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged |
posted
Most cattle pastoral nomads of the Sahara, Sahel and in east Africa of course consume milk and of course some like the Maasai virtually live on it.
-------------------- D. Reynolds-Marniche Posts: 4226 | From: New Jersey, USA | Registered: Mar 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by dana marniche: Most cattle pastoral nomads of the Sahara, Sahel and in east Africa of course consume milk and of course some like the Maasai virtually live on it.
Exactly. And this goes all the way back to the rise of cattle domestication in Africa and prior. Africans raise cattle primarily for milk and blood, like the Masai, as opposed to meat....
But of course the scholars always forget to point that out when claiming Africans being lactose intolerant didn't drink milk in ancient times. Then if that is the case why is their pastoral momadic lifestyle not based on eating cattle flesh then and primarily on drinking the milk?
Posts: 8889 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
^ What's funny is the racial generalizing and stereotyping. Yes many blacks in Africa are lactose intolerant but that is primarily among populations whose economy is NOT pastoral but agricultural based. Populations whose culture is centered on cattle pastoralism have the lowest rates of lactose intolerance and especially rural pastoralists from the Sudanese Dinka to the Kenyan Masai have NO frequencies of lactose intolerance at all! In fact, the same can be said for Asians. There's a stereotype that so-called "Mongoloid" peoples are lactose intolerant. For some southeast Asians like myself and even northeast Asians like many Chinese and Koreans where intolerance is really bad. But then you have folks like Tibetans who subsist on yak milk and dairy as well as steppe folk like the Mongols and Turks and even northern Siberian folk like the Tungus who subsist on reindeer milk where there is no lactose intolerance. The same can be said about Europeans. Lactose intolerance is more common among central and especially southern Europeans, but in northern Europe where dairy economy has a long history the incidence is low.
In other words, adaptation to lactose tolerance is based on adaptation to dairy subsistence is all!
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
The study, published today in Nature, was carried out using pot fragments, dating from around 7,000 years ago, found at the Takarkori rock shelter in the Tadrart Acacus Mountains, Libya.
This region, which has been extensively studied by coauthors on the study from Sapienza, University of Rome, is rich in engraved and painted rock art that portrays the importance of domestic animals, particularly cattle, to these pre-historic people.
Some of the art depicts animals with full udders, and in rare cases, the act of milking. However, despite this suggestive evidence of early dairying, it is difficult to date the art, making it inconclusive.
I take it this very article being cited in this thread is the very reason why the Anglo-Idiot started his own ridiculous thread here.
Unfortunately for the Anglo-Idiot, not only do we have genetic evidence that the lactose tolerance among African pastoralists is very ancient, but we also have skeletal evidence from the Sahara showing the people to be Africans as well as linguistic evidence such as the following:
In addition to the archeological and paleontological evidence, recent linguistic studies indicate the presence of early pastoralists in the Eastern Sahara. Detailed analysis of Nilo-Saharan root words has provided "convincing evidence" that the early cultural history of that language family included a pastoralist and food producing way of life, and that this occurred in what is today the south-western Sahara and Sahel belt. The Nilo-Saharan family of languages is divided into a complex array of branches and subgroups that reflect an enormous time depth. Just one of the subgroups, Kir is as internally complex as the lndo-European family of languages and is believed to have a comparable age. The Sudanese branch is of special interest here. This is particularly true of the Northern Sudanese subfamily that includes a Saharo-Sahelian subgroup, the early homeland of which is placed in northwest Sudan and northeast Chad. Today, the groups that speak Saharo-Sahelian are dispersed from the Niger river eastward to northwestern Ethiopian highlands. The Proto-Northern Sudanic language contains root words such as "to drive," "cow, "grain,""ear of grain," and "grindstone." Any of these might apply to food production, but another root word meaning "to milk" is cetainly the most convincing evidence of incipient pastoralism. There are also root words for "temporary shelter" and "to make a pot." In the succeeding Proto-Saharo-Sahelian language, there are root words for "to cultivate", "to prepare field", to "clear" (of weeds), and "cultivated field." this is the first unambiguous linguistic evidence of cultivation. There are also words for "thombush cattle pen," "fence," "yard," "grannary," as well as "to herd" and "cattle." In the following Proto-Sahelian period, there are root words for "goat," "sheep," "ram," and "lamb," indicating the presence of small livestock. There are root words for "cow," "bull," "ox," and "young cow" or "heifer" and, indeed, a variety of terms relating to cultivation and permanent houses. On the basis of known historical changes in some of the language, Ehret estimates that the Proto-Northern Sudanic language family, which includes the first root words indicating cattle pastoralism, should be dated about 10,000 years ago. He also estimates that the Proto-Saharan-Sahelian language family, which has words indicating not only more complex cattle pastroalism, but the first indications of cultivation, occurred around 9,000 years ago. He places the Proto-Sahelian language at about 8,500 years ago. These age estimates are just that, and should not be used to suggest any other chronology. Nevertheless, the sequence of cultural changes is remarkably similar to that in the archeology of the Eastern Sahara and, with some minor adjustments for the beginning of cultivation and for' the inclusion of "sheep" and "goat," reasonably closely to the radiocarbon chronology. - Fred Wendorf & Romuald Schild, 1994.
I'll just wait for the Anglo-Idiot to claim Nilo-Saharan as Eurasian in origin perhaps part of Nostratic. LMAOPosts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic