DNA Forums: DNA Forums -> Dairy farming

When and where did people start miking animals? At first herders kept animals as a meat larder on the hoof. The discovery of additional uses for animals, such as milk, wool, riding and traction, has been termed the Secondary Products Revolution. Together with metallurgy, it is the cultural signature of the age of metal. But these discoveries did not all take place at the same time or in the same place.

Archaeologists first deduced the start of milking from the study of animal bones. We would expect animals kept for meat alone to be killed young. That is the picture on early Neolithic sites. If the average age at slaughter rises, that is a clue that domesticated animals have another use for their keepers.

Now scientific analysis of fat residues on pottery can clarify the place and time that milking became important. A study in 2008 by Richard Evershed and colleagues of more than 2,200 pottery vessels vessels from sites in the Near East and southeastern Europe pointed to northwestern Anatolia. The lowland, coastal region around the Sea of Marmara favoured cattle-keeping. Pottery from these sites dating from 6500–5000 BC showed milk being processed. Processing into cheese and other dairy products would enhance the keeping qualities of the food. It would also aid digestion in a population that had not yet developed the ability to digest milk as adults.

I have added a section on dairy farming to The Near Eastern Neolithic.