Milking the system
 

Cattle Milked At Least 7,000 Years Ago
June 21, 2012 By Nathan 1 Comment

The first definitive evidence that cattle were used for their milk, by humans, in prehistoric Saharan Africa nearly 7,000 years ago is the focus of a study just published in the journal Nature.

The research was done by an international group of scientists, led by researchers from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom and including Kathleen Ryan of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

The research was done by analyzing fatty acids that were extracted from unglazed pottery excavated from an archaeological site in Libya. The researchers found that dairy fats had been processed in the pottery vessels. This is the first definite identification of dairying practices in the African continent, by prehistoric Saharan herders. It can be very accurately dated to the fifth millennium B.C.E.

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“While the remarkable rock art of Saharan Africa contains many representations of cattle – including, in a few cases, depictions of the actual milking of a cow – it can rarely be reliably dated,” Evershed said. “Also, the scarcity of cattle bones in archaeological sites makes it impossible to ascertain herd structures, thereby preventing interpretations of whether dairying was practiced.

“Molecular and isotopic analysis of absorbed food residues in pottery, however, is an excellent way to investigate the diet and subsistence practice of early peoples. It’s an approach my colleagues and I have previously applied to successfully determine the chronology of dairying, beginning in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East and spreading across Europe.”

Source: Planetsave (Cattle Milked At Least 7,000 Years Ago | Planetsave)

Milk is for baby cows..

I was just trying to remember how old the dietary laws in the Bible were that warned against cooking meat in milk. Not 5000 years old maybe, but maybe two or three thousand.

who cooks meat in milk?

Canaanites. And look what happened to them! Auto-smite!

People used to cook calf's liver in milk in Slavic countries in the 1800-1900s.

If I remember correctly, the prohibition is the mixing of meat and milk dishes because meat can be often cooked to the point where it cannot contain live germs, but people didn't have pasteurization, hence the prohibition on meat and milk together. That's why the Jewish believers who follow their dietary laws keep meat and milk dishes separate, I believe.

That's also why you can't buy a cheeseburger in modern-day Israel! :eek:

The whole of meat eating India and its surrounding countries eat meat dishes cooked with yoghurt. Hasnt hurt them..

cook in raw milk - no way..

You can buy a cheeseburger in Israel. I've read several articles about this. McD's has some restaurants there that keep kosher and others that don't.

Cattle are johnny come latelys. Iranian archaeological evidence has goats domesticated as early as 10K BP. Not that I have anything against dairy cows. Nothing like a big cold glass of 5% butterfat, unhomogenized and unpasteurized Guernsey or Jersey milk.
Hey E150GT, a question: do you eat eggs?

Corn in addition to being a plant native to the Americas was first domesticated at least 7000 years ago.

Probably earlier.

Ancient Popcorn Found

This revelation has prompted investigations into the cost of streaming movies in neolithic Peru.

Seed heads saved from last year's harvest for replanting this year.

http://i47.tinypic.com/34i03ed.jpg

there's a school of thought - not totally recognized by the medical/research community, for whatever reason? - that goats' milk is healthier, and that there may be a link between cow milk and diabetes? especially type I / early onset? perhaps a certain intolerance to certain fats and sugars and proteins in cow milk? one can be certain that the dairy lobby in the u.s. certainly isn't sponsoring research into this field. :D

Sure. Why?

700 bce maybe in their written form.

I don't think anyone has a clue as to why the prohibition exists. Lactose intolerant beef eating priest, inserted it into the text?

I hear about that school of thought from people who buy my milk all the time. They'll say "I'm lactose intolerant, I can only drink goat milk". I patiently explain to them that if they were truly lactose intolerant, they wouldn't be able to drink goat milk either. It contains just as much lactose as cow's milk. All mammalian milk contains lactose. It's milk sugar. Goat and cow's milk are nutritionally nearly identical as regards butterfat, calcium, protein, vitamins and minerals. What's different is the size of the fat molecules. Goat milk is naturally homogenized. Let a jar of raw cow's milk and a jar of raw goat milk sit in the fridge overnight and then compare the cream that has risen on top of both. The cow's cream will have almost completely risen to the top and there will be a thick layer. The goat cream will have formed only a very thin skim, maybe a mm or two, yet the two milks are the same in butterfat (cream) content. The cow's milk fat molecules are much much larger than the goat milk fat and are harder to digest, which makes people assume, without any medical confirmation, that they are lactose intolerant. What they are is cow's cream intolerant, and possibly also intolerant to the proteins in the milk.

Because of the fat and maybe other factors that haven't been well studied, goat's milk is really easy for people and animals to consume. I have raised colts, calves, baby pigs and lambs on goat's milk and my poultry get it all the time and love it. I swear my chickens lay better when they're getting a steady supply of it.
Now that there is so much interest in goat cheese in this country, it may be that eventually some real money will be spent studying the nutritional aspects of goat's milk as compared to cow's milk. While cows produce over 90 percent of the milk consumed in the U.S., goats produce 65 percent of the milk consumed world wide, most of that is small scale, locally distributed product. Virtually all the scientific work being done on goat's milk is done outside the U.S.