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Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk

sciencemag.org

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Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk

#71

Post by andai »

dijit wrote: post #27
jaynetics wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems your school really sucked, and not just with regards to learning as most schools seem to do. For many people, though, school is also a source of lifelong friendships, romance, and other good things.

I’m sure my experience with school is not unique. School was a prison, quite literally a mandatory daycare service which as a side project may have taught some kids. But really, I’m 30 now. I look back in awe that we subject our kids to this. The friendships you forge would happen without being in prison.

I used to compare school to daycare, until I realized that is too generous. At daycare they let you do whatever you want, play, explore, socialize, read. The toilets are available at all times. School was quite a step down from daycare.

Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk

#72

Post by burtonator »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #3

It 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…

One of the biggest misconceptions of evolution is that it's a slow and gradual process. Under the right conditions it can happen VERY fast.

Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk

#73

Post by simcop2387 »

hinkley wrote: post #30
pan69 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For one, you can simply eat the cows It could be more resource intensive to get a new cow each time rather than milk the same cow over and over for a longer period of time.

Milk production is also a continuum of data samples over the life of the animal. Eating the animal is one data sample and you can’t duplicate the animal after collecting the data. Selecting for milk production would be a lot more accurate than selecting for meat tastiness, longevity or even, to an lesser extent, health.

Actually we select for both depending on the line of the stock and have been doing so for a rather long time. You do lose the animal after killing it of course but we have a huge amount data from cattle breeding charts that lets a branch be trimmed if there's some fault with it that will damage the genetic tree.

Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk

#74

Post by sangnoir »

pan69 wrote: post #17
AlotOfReading wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 productio…

> For one, you can simply eat the cows It could be more resource intensive to get a new cow each time rather than milk the same cow over and over for a longer period of time.

You could also harvest and consume the blood[1], without having to kill any cattle.

1. https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/cow-blood-kenya-maasai

Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk

#75

Post by kaesar14 »

sangnoir wrote: post #74
pan69 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For one, you can simply eat the cows It could be more resource intensive to get a new cow each time rather than milk the same cow over and over for a longer period of time.

You could also harvest and consume the blood[1], without having to kill any cattle. 1. https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/cow-blood-kenya-maasai

This must be more dangerous disease transmission wise?

Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk

#76

Post by nyolfen »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #5
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #3

It 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 productio…

mongolians are also atypically short for a population with a tradition of dairying, though — those with lactase persistence are among the tallest in the world thanks to the massive caloric surplus reducing environmental selection against height in times of scarcity

Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk

#78

Post by bhk »

kristopolous wrote: post #58
pm90 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Milk is nutritious though. Besides calories it also provides amino acids. For non first world communities it thus formed an essential part of a healthy diet.

That's not the point in contestation. Specifically it's "how obsessed we are with giving milk to kids because it’s so healthy" The word "because" is a fascinating bridge. Whatever follows after reveals unstated assumptions hidden deep in the speakers mind. I'm objecting to the specific premise that it's some rational decision made individually by each parent based upon nutrition. Instead I'm claiming our cultural hab…

After reading the other responses to your earlier comment, I'm curious... In that "research domain" do they also attribute milk consumption in Eastern Europe in the last century and in India 5000 years ago to Big Dairy?

Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk

#79

Post by cozos »

nyolfen wrote: post #76
AlotOfReading wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 productio…

mongolians are also atypically short for a population with a tradition of dairying, though — those with lactase persistence are among the tallest in the world thanks to the massive caloric surplus reducing environmental selection against height in times of scarcity

that's an interesting theory ive never heard before. Is it generally accepted that Northern Europeans are taller because their society is less prone to famine?

Re: Warrior skeletons reveal Bronze Age Europeans couldn’t drink milk

#80

Post by AlotOfReading »

cozos wrote: post #79
nyolfen wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mongolians are also atypically short for a population with a tradition of dairying, though — those with lactase persistence are among the tallest in the world thanks to the massive caloric surplus reducing environmental selection against height in times of scarcity

that's an interesting theory ive never heard before. Is it generally accepted that Northern Europeans are taller because their society is less prone to famine?

It's relatively uncontroversial that contemporary European populations are among the tallest in the world broadly due to caloric surplus and generally good nutrition.

However it also worth noting that if we go back farther than the past century or so, it was non-european populations that were among the tallest in the world. That would be populations like the Sioux, Athabascans, and Maori. This kind of points to how big a factor social, economic and political context has on population metrics like height. Moreover, certain diets and populations simply make for shorter people. Disentangling all the effects is complicated.

For the data, I'm half-remembering a table from a paper I read years ago. Ourworldindata has a very similar table with pretty reasonable citations, so it checks out:

https://ourworldindata.org/human-height#how-does-environment...

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