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)