Milking and dairy consumption
Ordeño y consumo de leche
- Date
- c. 6500 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Barcın Höyük and the Marmara region, north-west Anatolia, Turkey
- Credited to
- Neolithic farmers of north-west Anatolia
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
Dairy lipids in pottery demonstrating the systematic milking of cows, goats and sheep. It turns the animal into a renewable food source without slaughtering it: the secondary-products revolution.
What it led to
- Genetic selection for lactase persistence among Europeans and African pastoralists
- A weaning food for infants that shortens the interval between births
- Dairy herding as a complete economy in steppes and deserts