
Prehistoric Babies Drank Animal Milk from Bottles - oblib
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/09/25/764243209/prehistoric-babies-drank-animal-milk-from-a-bottle
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lqet
Anyone who ever had a baby will not be surprised that prehistoric parents used
all their creativity and craftsmanship to develop techniques which made it
possible for someone other than the mother to feed the child.

According to Wikipedia, they still used cow horns filled with milk and hang
above the crib in Scandinavia in the 18th century [0].

[0]
[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cow%27s_Horn_used_fo...](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cow%27s_Horn_used_for_infant_feeding_Wellcome_L0036721.jpg)

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ryanobjc
As someone who had a kid, this is both obvious and a fun confirmation
evidence.

One of the things people forget is nature is not perfect and doesn't always
work. Sometimes babies don't figure out breastfeeding and die. That's why
formula was, in theory, invented. (maybe something about the industrial
revolution which required mom's to be away from their children)

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thrower123
I'm not seeing if they were able to definitively say whether the milk fats and
proteins they found were cow's milk or goat's milk.

Given that they found these in Bavaria, it's probably moot, as that's squarely
in the area you would expect to find lactose-tolerating people, but everything
I've read says that goat's milk has lower lactose levels than cow's milk. And,
weak evidence, I know, but just about every piece of fiction I've read that
featured babies that needed to be kept alive in the absence of their mother or
a wet nurse has gone to goat's milk first - off the top of my head, this
features in Ken Follet's Pillars of the Earth.

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pmjordan
I thought babies produced more lactase (lactose-digesting enzyme) anyway, even
for people (and ethnic groups) with lactose intolerance in adulthood? Human
breastmilk contains lactose - so the body expects to have to break it down at
that age.

(I'd have thought any preference for goat's milk over cow's would be connected
to the protein it contains.)

~~~
chithanh
Indeed, lactose tolerance declines between 2 and 5 years of age in most
people. Natural age of weaning in humans is 3-4 years.

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ineedasername
It seems logical that these might have been used to feed babies, but the
article also says it was previously thought they could have been used to feed
sick or elderly. The only justification given for assuming it was a baby was
not from the data, but that _" Sometimes research on women tends to be a
little bit marginalized..."_ That is very much true, but it does not
definitively mean these were baby bottles, it means the possibility may not
have been considered previously due to a research bias.

~~~
jdmichal
There's also the content analysis that they definitely held milk. And Bronze
Age is when Europeans would have just been developing lactose persistence:

" _A genome-wide scan for selection using DNA gathered from 230 ancient West
Eurasians who lived between 6500 and 300 BCE found that the earliest
appearance of the allele responsible for lactase persistence occurred in an
individual who lived in central Europe between 2450 and 2140 BCE._ "

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence#Evolutiona...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence#Evolutionary_history)

~~~
ineedasername
Yes, but I'm not convinced milk was only used for babies. Fermented milk
beverages like kefir have been around for thousands of year. Also, though
probably less likely, is cheese: It's conceivable these could have had a part
in that, letting the cream rise and pouring out the rest from the spout.

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NikolaeVarius
I suspect this might piss off some of the more ardent paleo-diet practitioners
/s

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jdmichal
This was sarcasm, but the article lists this as a Neolithic invention with
domesticated animals. Meaning it actually fits perfectly within the Paleo diet
story.

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dskjbfsakljb
To add to your comment in the title "Prehistoric" , "before history", means
before the advent of writing, i.e. 5 000 years or so; history originally
referring to times that have written records.

"History" itself now refers to the entire Universe timeline before the
present. But _pre_ history cannot mean that, because that would be pre-
BigBang.

So the title "Prehistoric babies Drank Animal Milk from Bottles" could refer
to 1491 born Guaraní babies drinking Llama's milk from ceramic bottles and a
nipple made from the rubber tree. Cool, but of no relevance to a paleo-diet.

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jdmichal
Generally correct; however also wrong in this specific instance. The article
also clearly limits scope to Europe, specifically modern-day Bavaria. And
therefore uses the specific and appropriate terms "Neolithic", "Bronze Age",
and "Iron Age". As Wikipedia calls out [0]:

 _" The terms "Neolithic" and "Bronze Age" are culture-specific and are mostly
limited to cultures of the Old World."_

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_prehistory#H...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_prehistory#Holocene)

~~~
zosterops
To add to that, terms like Bronze age refer to different times in different
locations depending on when bronze began being used. It would refer to an
earlier time in the near East than it would in Scandinavia(3300 BC vs 1700
BC). It is not as relevant in the Americas as metallurgy didn't even appear to
exist in pre-Columbian North America. There was some minor use of bronze in
certain South American cultures but it doesn't seem to have been extensive
enough to define a time period.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_Bronze_Age)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_East#Periodizatio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Near_East#Periodization)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-
Columbian_Am...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-
Columbian_America#Northern_America)

~~~
posterboy
There are nails from Vikings found in pre-coloumbian US. Happy columbus day

