http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993310

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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. ......