Prehistoric People Consumed Milk In 5TH Millenium BC

Samples from several skeletons discovered in the Provadiya – Solnitsata (“The Salt Pit”) prehistoric settlement in Northeast Bulgaria, which has been described as Europe’s oldest prehistoric town, indicate the people who lived there in the 5th millennium BC consumed milk.

This is pretty amazing, since it wasn't thought until recently that humans were able to consume raw milk. In this case, they not only consumed milk, but other milk products including yogurt.

These were not wild animals either. They were domesticated.

To add to this already great find. (“The Salt Pit”) is an enclosed SALT FORTRESS. Which is one of the earliest "enclosed" fortress's discovered yet.

Link to artical

In the Nordic regions, we always had raw milk ? Stretching millenias back, even adapted genes for it...

a reply to: yulka

Well, this would verify that claim to at-least 6500 years back

a reply to: Triton1128

i thought everyone knew? didnt know it wasnt a fact

a reply to: Triton1128

Hate to put a damper on everyone's amazement, but humans are mammals. We naturally produce milk for our young. We don't really need special genes to withstand lactose.

The next step of collecting milk from other animals is quite logical for hunter gatherers. Curdled milk products like yoghurt would be an outcome of having no refrigeration and collecting and containing milk.

a reply to: Triton1128
ERm, this is not "amazing" simply additional confirmation of what was already known. That is , that Europeans consumed cow's milk which is why we are tolerant of lactose whereas peoples from other parts of the world are lactose intolerant. The timing was assumed to have occurred when humans migrated into Europe and started farming. That wasn't recent but tens of thousands of years ago.

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: Triton1128

Hate to put a damper on everyone's amazement, but humans are mammals. We naturally produce milk for our young. We don't really need special genes to withstand lactose.

The next step of collecting milk from other animals is quite logical for hunter gatherers. Curdled milk products like yoghurt would be an outcome of having no refrigeration and collecting and containing milk.

Milk consumption aside.

I think the discovery of a fully enclosed fortress (with wall segments stretching 60m in length) is amazing in itself. Especially during a time period, when most hominids were nomadic.

Actually, most mammals can't digest milk from other animals. We have specific genes which allow us to do so.

a reply to: chr0naut

originally posted by: Triton1128

This is pretty amazing, since it wasn't thought until recently that humans were able to consume raw milk. In this case, they not only consumed milk, but other milk products including yogurt.

Yoghurt is a form of reduced lactose dairy product, if they were producing yoghurt it was because they couldn't drink milk...

a reply to: Triton1128

Very interesting, thank for posting. I'm a bit of a neolithic cheese nerd, I remember reading this article a while ago:

Traces of dairy fat in ancient ceramic fragments suggest that people have been making cheese in Europe for up to 7,500 years. In the tough days before refrigerators, early dairy farmers probably devised cheese-making as a way to preserve, and get the best use out of, milk from the cattle that they had begun to herd...

Mélanie Salque, a chemist at the University of Bristol, UK, used gas chromatography and carbon-isotope ratios to analyse molecules preserved in the pores of the ancient clay, and confirmed that they came from milk fats. “This research provides the smoking gun that cheese manufacture was practiced by Neolithic people 7,000 years ago,” says Bogucki.

www.nature.com...

The fortress is the best find though.

It is 6,500 years old, one of the earliest fortresses. Before it, there was another fortress, about 200 years older, which is the earliest one....For the first time, this was a plain region fenced off with a round wall, and a rather thick one, too, as it was more than 3 meters wide in its base, and at least 5 meters tall. This was something incredible in the middle of the 5th millennium BC,” concludes the Bulgarian archaeologist describing the prehistoric fortification near Provadiya.

About 2 and a half thousand years before Stonehenge, then. Wow. The article goes on to explain the wealth gained from the lucrative salt pits, and the need to build a fortress. Just down the road, the oldest horde of golden treasure (4500-4200 bc) of all time was found, at Varna.



Thanks for posting this, great thread.

a reply to: Triton1128

This is not news, its kind of 'olds'. Humans have been drinking and using milk for, I want to say, ever!

originally posted by: IndependentOpinion
a reply to: Triton1128

This is not news, its kind of 'olds'. Humans have been drinking and using milk for, I want to say, ever!

Its actually about 9000 years. The gene mutation originated in Northern Europe, www.geneticliteracyproject.org...

originally posted by: Woodcarver
Actually, most mammals can't digest milk from other animals. We have specific genes which allow us to do so.

a reply to: chr0naut

You want to revise that?

Are humans the only animal to drink milk from other species? - Naked Scientists, University of Cambridge

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: Triton1128

Hate to put a damper on everyone's amazement, but humans are mammals. We naturally produce milk for our young. We don't really need special genes to withstand lactose.

The next step of collecting milk from other animals is quite logical for hunter gatherers. Curdled milk products like yoghurt would be an outcome of having no refrigeration and collecting and containing milk.

Im lactose intolerant, i promise you, stand in the room with me and you will say, those genes are a god gift.

a reply to: beansidhe

Dont forget, we are suppose to say, neolithic culture started in the Middle East. Shhhhh, even if you know the truth, they get mad. Just act stupid, we all do it in the north. We say, yes you were first, it works wonders and they leave you alone.

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: Triton1128

Hate to put a damper on everyone's amazement, but humans are mammals. We naturally produce milk for our young. We don't really need special genes to withstand lactose.

The next step of collecting milk from other animals is quite logical for hunter gatherers. Curdled milk products like yoghurt would be an outcome of having no refrigeration and collecting and containing milk.

You don't need special genes to process lactose when quite young but for an adult to be able to process it like a toddler they require the mutation for "Lactose Persistence" which is estimated to be ~10 KA +/- though some of the yogurts produced at that period of time had much less lactose than milk itself so that may have been the initial
Impetus that led to the mutation for lactose persistence. It is known however that as we developed a higher tolerance over time for lactose, the dairy cattle that was being herded simultaneously was evolving to produce milk with lower levels of lactose and each species essentially met the other halfway. I'll have to look up the research but there was a thread on ATS a year or so ago where this was all discussed as well.