In 1981, archaeologists studying key farming developments proposed that farm communities adopted dairying sometime between 4,000 and 3,500 BCE and began using livestock for more than just meat.
"Animal bones from sites in the British Isles showed patterns of which cows were slaughtered—lots of young males and older females—it is consistent with what you would find in a dairying economy,” observed archaeologist Peter Bogucki.
Bogucki had also noticed an unusual type of pottery at a number of sites around Poland: fragments of pots that had been perforated with small holes. Sieve sherds were frequently found at sites dating as far back as the Neolithic period. But other archaeologists proposed they may have been used only as honey strainers or for braziers.
Bogucki analyzed animal remains from Linear Pottery Culture settlements and concluded that Linear Pottery settlers seldom hunted for food and relied heavily on cattle. There were also almost no remains of pigs, a far more efficient meat source than cattle. He concluded that raising cattle for meat alone would have made no economic sense as the herds would have consumed too much food over too long a time. Furthermore, production of milk alone would not justify dairy farming either unless it could be converted into something more storable. So, he proposed the sieves were being used to produce cheese.
In 2013, using a technique to analyze lipid remnants in ancient pottery developed by Biochemist Richard Evershed of the University of Bristol, Bogucki was finally able to provide compelling evidence that ancient farmers used 7,200-year-old perforated pottery to separate low lactose cheese curds from whey, an important innovation since Neolithic Europeans were generally unable to digest lactose. Researchers also think the development of cheese production along with other fermented milk products may have reduced infant mortality as well and allowed for earlier weaning, decreasing the birth interval and potentially increasing population.
Read more about it: https://phys.org/news/2018-09-earliest-mediterranean-cheese-production-revealed.html and https://www.futurity.org/neolithic-strainer-hints-at-origin-of-cheese/
Images: Neolithic pottery from Dalmatia that was found to contain milk and fermented milk products when residue within the vessels was analyzed for carbon isotopes. Image courtesy of phys.org.
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