Milk discovered to be important element during the Neolithisation of the northern Mediterranean region

17/11/2016

The Neolithic communities in the northern Mediterranean region began to produce milk some 9,000 to 7,000 years ago, from the onset of agriculture and as soon as they began to domesticate animals.

Milk was an important food, which contributed greatly to the expansion of the early farming communities by providing a nourishing and storable food product. It was also a key factor in the domestication of animals across the region.

These are the conclusions reached in an international research published in PNAS, which provides new evidence and a regional perspective on the exploitation of the first domesticated animals in this geographic area.

The study, led by the universities of York and Bristol and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), with the involvement of the UAB, has for the first time combined the analysis of animal fat - lipid - residues in 567 pottery vessels, with the analysis of ages at death of the main species of domesticated animals excavated from 82 sites in the northern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions and dating from the 7th to 5th millennia BCE.

The results show a diversified animal management at the beginning of the Neolithic period. Milk processing activities varied in intensity depending on region, but the majority of communities began to exploit this product at the same time as the began to domesticate animals. The discovery of dairy residues in pottery dating back to the 7th millennia BCE show the importance of dairying in both the east and west of the region; while in northern Greece this intensity was much lower, where evidence shows that meat production, and especially pork, was the main activity.

The importance of meat and dairy production in the Neolithic Mediterranean area remains a topic of debate, with previous research showing that the attraction for milk may have been a driving force for the domestication of ruminant animals such as cows, goats and sheep.

Maria Saña, lecturer of the UAB Department of Prehistory and co-author of the study, points out that "this discovery is particularly relevant because making milk production one of their subsistence practices remodelled the economy and human nutrition in a way which still affects us no".

Sheep and Goats in the Iberian Peninsula

The ancient Neolithic sites analysed in the Iberian Peninsula reveal that sheep and goats were the main components of the first domesticated animals in the most western part of the Mediterranean, with a strong co-relation between the years in which goats and cows were used for human consumption and the presence of dairy residues in pottery vessels.

With regard to the reasons why the animals were suddenly used for milk production, researchers consider that along with environmental factors, great importance should be given to several cultural dynamics and traditions which characterise the first Neolithic communities of the northern Mediterranean region.

The research also leads to the question of how this milk was processed to make it digestible and palatable for the first Neolithic farmers, many of which were probably lactose intolerant.

Original article: Cynthianne Debono Spiteri, Rosalind E. Gillis, Mélanie Roffet-Salque, Laura Castells Navarro, Jean Guilaine, Claire Manen, Italo M. Muntoni, Maria Saña Segui, Dushka Urem-Kotsou, Helen L. Whelton, Oliver E. Craig, Jean-Denis Vigne, Richard P. Evershed. "Regional asynchronicity in dairy production and processing in early farming communities of the northern Mediterranean" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016; 201607810 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1607810113