
Study suggest Neolithic Britons processed raw milk to reduce its lactose content - jelliclesfarm
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/prehistoric-farmers-teeth-show-humans-were-drinking-animal-milk-6000-years-ago-180973101/
======
tom_mellior
The actual title is "Prehistoric Farmers’ Teeth Show Humans Were Drinking
Animal Milk 6,000 Years Ago"; the subtitle is "A new study suggests Neolithic
Britons processed raw milk to reduce its lactose content".

My reading of this article is that there is proof for processing of milk, but
(of course) no evidence _why_ it was processed. The guess put forward is that
it's (only) due to lactose content. But that is far from the only reason to
process milk: Cheese is both more portable and less perishable than fresh
milk.

~~~
jelliclesfarm
It was processed because we didn’t have the ability to process lactose after
weaning. Milk consumption would have become prevalent when we settled to
become pastoralists rather than when we were nomads.

The most fascinating thing to me though is why some of us continued to be
lactose persistence and passed on that gene down to descendants.

It seems like being lactose persistent became a genetic advantage when we
became migrants and cows became a portable calorie and protein vending machine
that could travel with us.

Hunter gatherers had home bases. Pastoralists settled. Migrants moved to
settle.

Also: [https://www.sapiens.org/evolution/lactose-intolerance-
cheese...](https://www.sapiens.org/evolution/lactose-intolerance-cheese-
evolution/)

[..]Ancient DNA analysis on human skeletons from prehistoric Europe places the
earliest appearance of the lactase gene (LCT)—which keeps adults producing
lactase—at 2500 B.C. But there is plenty of evidence from the Neolithic period
(around 6000–2500 B.C. in Europe) that milk was being consumed.

This is not totally surprising though, as the Neolithic marks the start of
farming in most regions of Europe—and the first time humans lived closely
alongside animals. And although they were unable to digest milk, we know that
Neolithic populations were processing milk into substances they could
consume.[..]

~~~
mywittyname
> The most fascinating thing to me though is why some of us continued to be
> lactose persistence and passed on that gene down to descendants.

Hypolactasia is readily inheritable from only a single parent and shepards who
bore more offspring probably had a large advantage because their kids could
assist with maintaining a larger herd.

~~~
thelazydogsback
> (goats)(shepherds) their _kids_

Intended or not, nice one for NLP disambiguation :)

------
peterburkimsher
I started thinking about this after a BBC article last week. [1] The thought
that cheese existed before drinking milk was mind-blowing. Lactose intolerance
is normal, "However, many modern Europeans possess a genetic mutation which
allows for the continued consumption of milk into adulthood." Growing up in
Geneva, the cultural importance of local French and Swiss cheeses from the
Alps and Jura is significant, and dates back to Roman times, according to
Pliny the Elder's Naturalis Historia [2].

A lot was happening about 6000 years ago. Cuneiform script was invented about
3200 BC. Egyptian hieroglyphs are from 3400 BC. Noam Chomsky suggested a
cosmic ray shower that suddenly delivered language to proto-humans. [3]

Suppose language came from one source (the monogenetic theory [4], compatible
with the Tower of Babel), at the same time as recorded history began about
6000 years ago (4000 BC). As well as transmitting language from this single
source, people would also trade goods and culture, such as cheese recipes. All
words for cheese would therefore have a single origin, and people all around
the world should have cheese.

But we know that this isn't the case. Cheese is very new in China, and lactose
intolerance is common. Even the name, "起司 qǐ sī", is from English, unlike the
French word "fromage".

What I'm suggesting is that because i) we know cheese existed before recorded
history, and ii) we know that Chinese don't traditionally eat cheese, then
iii) I doubt that there was worldwide trade that spread language, and
therefore iv) the monogenetic theory of language wouldn't be true -> the
Chinese language was developed independently of Mesopotamian/Phoenician/Latin.

Please tell me if you think this is a crazy hypothesis, or if this is
something worth researching.

[1] [https://www.bbc.com/news/science-
environment-49650806](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49650806)

[2]
[https://peterburk.github.io/pliny/ChaptersHtml/11.%20Book%20...](https://peterburk.github.io/pliny/ChaptersHtml/11.%20Book%20XI.%20The%20Various%20Kinds%20Of%20Insects./97.%20Chap.%2097.%20\(42.\)-Various%20Kinds%20Of%20Cheese..html)

[3] [https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/11/man-or-mutant-is-
huma...](https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/11/man-or-mutant-is-human-
language-the-product-of-bizarre-mutation/)

[4]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenetic_theory_of_pidgins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenetic_theory_of_pidgins)

~~~
tom_mellior
> All words for cheese would therefore have a single origin

This isn't how language works. Even languages from the same family, including
very closely related ones, often have different words for the same concept.
Consider that English and French are both Indo-European languages, and that
English has a lot of its vocabulary from French, and _still_ "cheese" and
"fromage" don't have the same origin. Or consider Spanish, which is closely
related to French and Italian ("formaggio"), and which has "queso" (which,
again, has the same Latin root as "cheese" does).

The English word, like many inherited from French, has a Latin origin but
English got "cheese" not via French but via a borrowing of the Latin word into
a Germanic language, although Proto-Germanic already had a completely fine
word for cheese: [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-
Germanic...](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-
Germanic/justaz).

The point being, the evolution of words is not as linear as you seem to think.

EDIT:

> Suppose language came from one source (the monogenetic theory [4], [4]
> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenetic_theory_of_pidgins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monogenetic_theory_of_pidgins)

That's only about pidgins, not all languages by far. You meant this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-
Human_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Human_language)

~~~
peterburkimsher
Thank you for your comments! "justaz" you were saying, language is pretty
complicated, so it's not worth making broad conclusions from etymology.

Yes, you're right about Proto-Human language - I'd just done a quick search
for "monogenesis" and found the wrong page. Would you agree though, that if
written language has a single origin, then there must have been an ancient
worldwide trade network, through which cheese would also have travelled?

~~~
tom_mellior
> Would you agree though, that if written language has a single origin, then
> there must have been an ancient worldwide trade network, through which
> cheese would also have travelled?

The question of language is independent of this question, I think. Even if
there was a single origin, cheese might have been invented locally after
languages had separated.

Moreover, we know that there _were_ ancient worldwide trade networks. The
Roman Empire had silk imported from China 2000 years ago. Cheese and cheese
recipes could have traveled from Europe along the Silk Road, just as tofu
might have traveled from China to Europe. I wouldn't assume that the idea of
cheese was unknown in China until recently. For whatever it's worth,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese#Origins](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese#Origins)
says: "The earliest ever discovered preserved cheese was found in the
Taklamakan Desert in Xinjiang, China, and it dates back as early as 1615 BCE."
linking to [https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/02/25/worlds-
oldest-...](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/02/25/worlds-oldest-
cheese/5776373/) as the source.

So if cheese is historically not popular in China, I wouldn't think that this
is because there was no knowledge of cheese in China, I would guess that there
are some cultural preferences or other reasons that it didn't catch on. Maybe
the Chinese knew that they couldn't digest milk well and decided that milk and
milk products in general must be bad for you. I don't know.

