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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2009-08 > 1251577680
From: Steven Bird <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Lactase persistance started about 7,500 years ago in central Europe
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:28:00 -0400
References: <732231.31325.qm@web86610.mail.ird.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <732231.31325.qm@web86610.mail.ird.yahoo.com>
Dear Alan,
Be more specific, please. Are you suggesting that the LBK culture emerged from Anatolia by way of the land bridge from Anatolia (across the Bosporus before its formation?) The movement across the Marmara is actually more closely associated with the emergence of the proto-Thracian culture of the EBA (see Hoddinott, "The Thracians". The LBK was found further north. Are you suggesting that the LBK emerged from the Balkan EBA culture? What about LBK's relationship to the Vinca culture?
What are the studies that you cite concerning Neolithic pottery?
Thanks,
Steven Bird, DMA
> Date: Sat, 29 Aug 2009 16:52:26 +0000
> From:
> To:
> Subject: Re: [DNA] Lactase persistance started about 7, 500 years ago in central Europe
>
> Recent studies of residues on early Neolithic pottery suggests actual consumption of liquid cattle milk began in the early Neolithic in the temperate extreme NW of Turkey near the Bosphorus close to Istanbul where Asia Minor meets the Europe, not at the Mediterranean but the Balkans and Bulgaria. Cattle milk consumption likely spread from there into the north Balkans and Bulgaria first then westwards through central and ultimately western Europe with the Linearbandkeramik culture. This contrasts with the Aegean Neolithic and contemporary Cardial early Neolithic culture zone along the Mediterranean where dairying seemed focused on goats and sheep and probably cheese products and lactase persistence is not such an issue. I suppose to some extent this contrast survives to this day.
>
> It seems rational to me that this spread of raw cattle milk consumption from the Bosphorus area through the Balkans then westwards must be the scenario where selection for lactase persistence got under way. The belief that it spread 3000 years later in the late Neolithic from the steppes was popular for a long time but all the new archaeological evidence seems to state otherwise. I think that selection may have been a constant process and may have taken 1000s of years to reach saturation in some areas. That would mean that there will not necessarily be a correlation between the origin point and the highest lactase persistence count today and instead the highest count will simply be in areas where selection for the ability to drink cows milk was most consistent over a long period i.e. those areas where cattle's milk longest remained a crucial part of the local economy and diet.
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