Cuisine of early farmers revealed by analysis of proteins in pottery from Çatalhöyük

[halfalp]

I'm mainly of neolithic europe ancestry ( according to gedmatch ) and i'm intolerant to lactose and gluten. Why everything have to be so complicated.

 

[CrazyDonkey]

Well, there's no doubt now that Anatolians were consuming dairy from a very early period, from cows as well as sheep and goats, and irrespective of the fact that they didn't have the common, modern LP gene.

Either they cooked it in such a way as to get rid of a lot of the lactase, or they had some other genetic protection against the possible unpleasant side effects.

However, just following the section you emphasized:

However, the researchers emphasize that based on the archaeological record, an even greater variety of foods, especially plant foods, was likely eaten at Çatalhöyük. These were either not contained in the vessels they studied, or are not present in the databases they use to identify proteins.

Lactase persistence in adults would not confer any evolutionary advantage in a sedentary agricultural society relying primarily on grains and legumes for nutrition. That doesn't mean that infants and children weren't fed milk from goats, sheep, and bovines as a supplement to "mother's milk". The advantage, among adults, would only have accrued as part of the development of mobile pastoral societies. It would be logical to assume that dairy production preceded, rather than followed from, the development of wide-scale lactase persistence in adults.

 

[Angela]

However, just following the section you emphasized:



Lactase persistence in adults would not confer any evolutionary advantage in a sedentary agricultural society relying primarily on grains and legumes for nutrition. That doesn't mean that infants and children weren't fed milk from goats, sheep, and bovines as a supplement to "mother's milk". The advantage, among adults, would only have accrued as part of the development of mobile pastoral societies. It would be logical to assume that dairy production preceded, rather than followed from, the development of wide-scale lactase persistence in adults.

I agree.

For example, the steppe pastoralists, the Yamnaya, whom so many thought would have had and spread the LP gene, didn't have it. Perhaps it was because they weren't farmers first, who would have learned to milk the animals and make cheese? It does show up later in Bell Beaker people

Interestingly, African pastoralists do have some versions of it.

 

[bicicleur 2]

I agree.

For example, the steppe pastoralists, the Yamnaya, whom so many thought would have had and spread the LP gene, didn't have it. Perhaps it was because they weren't farmers first, who would have learned to milk the animals and make cheese? It does show up later in Bell Beaker people

Interestingly, African pastoralists do have some versions of it.

the Cushites drank milk when they arrived in Africa from the Levant
the Cushites were herders + hunters + fishers, they practiced very little agriculture
I guess roaming around on the Green Sahara was more interesting than practicing settled agriculture

the Nilotes and the Bantu seem to have taken over lactase persistence almost instantly

 

[CrazyDonkey]

We shouldn't forget the fact that kids can drink milk in pure form with no problems, and most population of villages were kids. It means that having access to milk could feed half of needed calories to the always hungry kids. And this was huge help. Goats can graze on anything, even old dry grass in times of a draught, and give milk. Perhaps this was the main reason of domestication of goats and sheep and not the meat. After all men could hunt for meat, but you can't milk wild animals.

And it would have freed mothers from having to constantly nurse their babies, allowing them to participate more fully in the agricultural economy, untethered, if you will, passing on child feeding duties to grandmothers, great aunts, etc.

People might have consumed food that caused unpleasant side-effects, if the overall nutritional benefit compensated for the discomfort.

 

[Angela]

^^That's if they even knew what caused it. When I first started getting some gastrointestinal problems in my thirties if I ate too much cheese or if I ate a lot of ice cream, I had no idea that I was now slightly lactose intolerant, or perhaps intolerant of the milk protein. (Btw, I carry two copies of the lactase persistence gene.) The doctor had to have me eliminate one food after another, and that was after lots of tests for more serious diseases.

Just to clarify, though, there are a lot of goat, sheep and cow bones in Neolithic refuse pits in Anatolia as well as the Balkans and central Europe. Maybe they only butchered the animals when they got old? The ratio of which animals were consumed depended on the terrain. They almost always also hunted. On the other hand, there aren't a lot of remains of these dairy products, far less than there are of grains, pulses or even meat, so I doubt they consumed huge quantities of them.

Nor am I convinced they would necessarily have fed a lot of milk in its liquid form to their young children.

For example, in comparison with northern European populations, we have in Liguria/alta Toscana, my mother's area, a lot more people who are lactose intolerant, or, at least, they don't have the appropriate gene, or only have one copy. I don't know if that's the reason, but although it may be different now since Italians have taken on some "foreign" habits, once children were weaned the first foods were broths, bread soaked in broth, pastina with a little bit of butter and so on. A little older and you did get caffe e latte, or a bowl of milk with a little espresso in it, sugar, and again, soaked bread. Later yet, cappuccino, which has a lot of milk. However, I remember being told you shouldn't have milk with "real" meals, i.e. lunch or dinner, as it would spoil your digestion. Btw, there's a peasant saying: pan e vin fan un bel fantin. Or, bread and wine make a beautiful baby. No mention of milk. Warm milk and honey before bed was something my mother occasionally did, but my father never.

All of that said, even as adults, our sofrito always starts with butter as well as oil, we always put butter on bread in the morning, we eat a lot of pecorino cheese as well as parmigiano, we often dress ravioli with butter and sage sauce, and I never heard anyone complain. Maybe in moderation there's no problem. Nobody is drinking a liter of milk.

Things are a bit different in the mountains of Emilia. Butter and cream sauces often saturate all the pastas, a fact which even Italians often seem to not know, with their horror of things like the Americanized fettuccine alfredo and claims that Italians would never put cream on pasta. My father's people eat even more cheese than Ligurians it seems to me. It makes sense as I think there may be more cows than people up there.

My father told me that as a child, when they went to visit their grandparents, they would drink the milk right from the cow, but even there I never, ever, saw anyone drink a glass of milk with a meal, for example. I was shocked by it when I saw American families doing that. Even today, the only time I would ever drink some milk would be after dunking some oreos in it, or in a hot toddy of some sort. My brother, on the other hand, got used to it through his friends, so we kept it for him, but never at the table with food.