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http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993310
The World's No.1 Science & Technology News Service
Cavemen's taste for milk revealed
22:00 27 January 03
NewScientist.com news service
The image of our cavemen ancestors as wild hunters who enjoyed no better meal
than flesh torn from their latest kill has been dented by new archaeological
research. Chemical analysis of 6000-year-old pottery shards shows ancient
Britons also had a taste for cow's milk and goat's cheese.
"This is the first direct evidence for widespread dairying at prehistoric
sites anywhere in the world," says Richard Evershed, professor of
biogeochemistry at the University of Bristol, UK. Archaeologists had
previously uncovered a few objects that suggested dairying, such as suspected
cheese strainers, but nothing unambiguous.
Until now, the earliest proof of dairying was a picture of a Sumerian frieze
in Baghdad Museum showing milking 4500 years ago. "And in Britain we had no
proof till pictures and writing in Roman times," Evershed told New Scientist.
Second revolution
The findings will shed a new light on the diet, health and economics of
Neolithic humans. Humans first domesticated animals for their meat about
10,000 years ago, probably in the Middle East. Evershed thinks a second
revolution, in which animals were used for milk and wool, may have happened
around 7000 years ago. ......
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