More than 7,000 years ago ancient Britons were among the first to star farming cows for their milk, a study of pottery fragments has revealed.
Scientists from the University of York tracked the shift from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to early farming in prehistoric Europe over about 1,500 years.
The York team examined the molecular remains of food left in pottery that was used by farmers who settled along the Atlantic coast of Europe 7,000 years ago.
Dairy farming in Europe started on the Southern Atlantic coast – now Spain and Portugal – but it didn’t really take off until it reached what is now Britain and Ireland.
The York team examined the molecular remains of food left in pottery that was used by farmers who settled along the Atlantic coast of Europe 7,000 years ago
An international team of researchers worked on the study that included pottery found at 24 Early Neolithic sites across Europe.
About 80 per cent of the pottery fragments found along the part of the Atlantic coast that is now Britain and Ireland contained dairy products.
In contrast, the parts of the coast that now make up Portugal and Spain were less intensive and primarily made up of products from sheep and coats rather than cows.
‘The frequency of dairy products in pottery increased as farming was progressively introduced along a northerly latitudinal gradient’, the authors wrote.
‘This finding implies that early farming communities needed time to adapt their economic practices before expanding into more northerly areas.’
Prehistoric farmers colonising Northern areas with harsher climates may have had a greater need for the nutritional benefits of milk.
This would have included vitamin D and fat, the authors of the study suggest.
Senior author, Professor Oliver Craig from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, said the study provides an insight into lactose tolerance.
‘Latitudinal differences in the scale of dairy production might also be important for understanding the evolution of adult lactase persistence across Europe,’ he said.
‘Today, the genetic change that allows adults to digest the lactose in milk is at much higher frequency in Northwestern Europeans than their southern counterparts’.
The research team examined organic residues preserved in pottery from sites situated between Portugal and Normandy as well as in the Western Baltic.
‘We deduce that intensive dairying is closely linked with cattle-based economies, while sheep and goats were exploited for both their meat and milk, at least in the initial phases of the Neolithic,’ researchers wrote.
‘A similar association between cattle and dairying has been reported for the Early Neolithic of South-eastern Europe and the Near East and may have been important for the initial expansion of farming beyond the Mediterranean climate zone.’
They found surprisingly little evidence for marine foods in pottery even from sites located close to the Atlantic shoreline.
This is despite the people in the area presented with plenty of opportunities for fishing and shellfish gathering.
‘An exception was in the Western Baltic where dairy foods and marine foods were both prepared in pottery,’ the team wrote.
The authors found that as the ‘Neolithic’ – that is the arrival of farming and settlement – arrived at different regions along the Atlantic coast there were different responses.
They say this was linked to different economic and cultural traditions of the farmers who migrated to these new territories and the environment they moved into.
For example, in higher latitudes with colder temperatures and more extreme conditions there was up to a 500 year delay in the start of the Neolithic while groups adapted their farming methods to these conditions.
Scientists from the University of York tracked the shift from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to early farming in prehistoric Europe over about 1,500 years
This is particularly evident in dairy products – the ‘The frequency of dairy versus other terrestrial animal fats in pottery seems to be strongly influenced by latitude.’
Even in Britain and Ireland, where Early Neolithic sites in the south and the north have similar dates, dairy fats were more frequent at higher latitude sites.
This ‘perhaps highlighting the importance of local environmental conditions or nutritional requirements’.
Although Early Neolithic populations in Western Europe were largely lactose intolerant, variation in the scale of dairying observed across the Atlantic may have created a change towards more lactose tolerance in northern parts.
Lead author Dr Miriam Cubas, said: “This surprising discovery could mean that many prehistoric farmers shunned marine foods in favour of dairy, but perhaps fish and shellfish were simply processed in other ways.’
“Our study is one of the largest regional comparisons of early pottery use,’ she said.
‘It has shed new light on the spread of early farming across Atlantic Europe and showed that there was huge variety in the way early farmers lived.
‘These results help us to gain more of an insight into the lives of people living during this process of momentous change in culture and lifestyle – from hunter-gatherer to farming.’
The research has been published in the journal Nature Communications.
Britain began the move from ‘hunter-gatherer’ to farming and settlements about 7,000 years ago as part of the ‘Neolithic Revolution’
The Neolithic Revolution was the world’s first verifiable revolution in agriculture.
It began in Britain between about 5000 BC and 4500 BC but spread across Europe from origins in Syria and Iraq between about 11000 BC and 9000 BC.
The period saw the widespread transition of many disparate human cultures from nomadic hunting and gathering practices to ones of farming and building small settlements.
Stonehenge, the most famous prehistoric structure in Europe, possibly the world, was built by Neolithic people, and later added to during the early Bronze Age
The revolution was responsible for turning small groups of travellers into settled communities who built villages and towns.
Some cultures used irrigation and made forest clearings to better their farming techniques.
Others stored food for times of hunger, and farming eventually created different roles and divisions of labour in societies as well as trading economies.
In the UK, the period was triggered by a huge migration or folk-movement from across the Channel.
The Neolithic Revolution saw humans in Britain move from groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers to settled communities. Some of the earliest monuments in Britain are Neolithic structures, including Silbury Hill in Wiltshire (pictured)
Today, prehistoric monuments in the UK span from the time of the Neolithic farmers to the invasion of the Romans in AD 43.
Many of them are looked after by English Heritage and range from standing stones to massive stone circles, and from burial mounds to hillforts.
Stonehenge, the most famous prehistoric structure in Europe, possibly the world, was built by Neolithic people, and later finished during the Bronze Age.
Neolithic structures were typically used for ceremonies, religious feasts and as centres for trade and social gatherings.
