Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk
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Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk
#2I know this because my kids watch horrible histories.
My kids know more about history than I learnt at school by watching horrible histories.
Primary school history lessons should watch all the horrible histories, they really are great at teaching kids.
Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk
#3It doesn't really surprise me much that lactase persistence should be so strongly selected for in a relatively short period of time. Cows and other ungulates possess a rather magical ability to turn something that can't be digested by humans (cellulose) into something that can (milk). Opening up the huge caloric and nutrient resource of cellulose to humans in a relatively replenishable way had to be a giant benefit to those who could digest milk.
Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk
#4It doesn't really surprise me much that lactase persistence should be so strongly selected for in a relatively short period of time. Cows and other ungulates possess a rather magical ability to turn something that can't be digested by humans (cellulose) into something that can (milk). Opening up the huge caloric and nutrient resource of cellulose to humans in a relatively replenishable way had to be a giant benefit t…
If it's so powerful, why did it not take over the rest of the world, or at least the rest of Eurasia? You'd think just a few people having kids with foreign populations would make the gene conquer the whole planet? They had cows in other places as well, right?
One guess might be that winters in Europe were harsher than other population centres (China, India, Middle East), and periodic famines meant that some people would just scrape enough calories from milk. You hear stories about people trying everything when they're out of food, maybe trying the cow's milk was a sort of last resort that worked for some lucky people. Then again, you'd think they'd have eaten the cow first.
The article does say it happened too fast to be from natural drift or population turnover, but I'm not sure what turnover means. Is that replacement say from a conquering tribe?
Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk
#5It doesn't really surprise me much that lactase persistence should be so strongly selected for in a relatively short period of time. Cows and other ungulates possess a rather magical ability to turn something that can't be digested by humans (cellulose) into something that can (milk). Opening up the huge caloric and nutrient resource of cellulose to humans in a relatively replenishable way had to be a giant benefit t…
Lactase persistence isn't the only (or even first) way to convert inedible flora into food. For one, you can simply eat the cows, the way it was done for most of human history. If you absolutely insist on dairy though, the genes for lactase persistence post-date dairying by a few millennia and many people who rely primarily on dairy today still lack the genes, like most Mongolians. They've adapted different production methods and gut microbiota to take care of the issues.
Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk
#6I know this because my kids watch horrible histories. My kids know more about history than I learnt at school by watching horrible histories. Primary school history lessons should watch all the horrible histories, they really are great at teaching kids.
I believe school should mostly be help with what is currently deemed “homework” and homework should consist of watching lectures, interesting videos, etc. from the incredible plethora of existing content that is superb. No individual teacher could ever create lessons as good as those (plus it’s exhausting). Teaching is backwards and hasn’t evolved in 100 years!
Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk
#7It doesn't really surprise me much that lactase persistence should be so strongly selected for in a relatively short period of time. Cows and other ungulates possess a rather magical ability to turn something that can't be digested by humans (cellulose) into something that can (milk). Opening up the huge caloric and nutrient resource of cellulose to humans in a relatively replenishable way had to be a giant benefit t…
If it's so powerful, why did it not take over the rest of the world, or at least the rest of Eurasia? You'd think just a few people having kids with foreign populations would make the gene conquer the whole planet? They had cows in other places as well, right? One guess might be that winters in Europe were harsher than other population centres (China, India, Middle East), and periodic famines meant that some people w…
>You hear stories about people trying everything when they're out of food, maybe trying the cow's milk was a sort of last resort that worked for some lucky people. Then again, you'd think they'd have eaten the cow first.
Maybe it was more desperation from waiting for cheese or something? I'm guessing if they kept milk cattle and didn't eat it they had a reason?
Cheese seems like something that cows would be used for. It's easy to make, it comes from curdled cream, it stores for long periods, and it's calorie dense.
Maybe milk drinking came at a time of extreme hunger where people just drank it directly instead of waiting?
Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk
#8It doesn't really surprise me much that lactase persistence should be so strongly selected for in a relatively short period of time. Cows and other ungulates possess a rather magical ability to turn something that can't be digested by humans (cellulose) into something that can (milk). Opening up the huge caloric and nutrient resource of cellulose to humans in a relatively replenishable way had to be a giant benefit t…
If it's so powerful, why did it not take over the rest of the world, or at least the rest of Eurasia? You'd think just a few people having kids with foreign populations would make the gene conquer the whole planet? They had cows in other places as well, right? One guess might be that winters in Europe were harsher than other population centres (China, India, Middle East), and periodic famines meant that some people w…
Eurasia focused more on mare's milk and China and other rice dominated agricultures had no room for large concentrations of herds.
Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk
#9I know this because my kids watch horrible histories. My kids know more about history than I learnt at school by watching horrible histories. Primary school history lessons should watch all the horrible histories, they really are great at teaching kids.
I believe school should mostly be help with what is currently deemed “homework” and homework should consist of watching lectures, interesting videos, etc. from the incredible plethora of existing content that is superb. No individual teacher could ever create lessons as good as those (plus it’s exhausting). Teaching is backwards and hasn’t evolved in 100 years!
Yes, the educational system is about two standard deviations worse than a private tutor. There's a name for this effect, but I don't remember it.
As someone who was homeschooled, I'll do that for my children as well, and I hope I will be able to afford a tutor to assist with that. I've had no difficulty in life competing with people who went through the public school system, and I want my kids to have the same advantage.
And that's before thinking about the people whose lives were ruined by the influences of their peers, by the bullying, the drugs, or the teen pregnancy. Some of those people who went to my school, before I switched to homeschooling, are no longer among the living.
Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk
#10https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence
Probably will be updated :)