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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

#111

Post by iguy »

Rexxar wrote: post #14
lordnacho wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If it's so powerful, why did it not take over the rest of the world. Time. For going from 1/10 000 000 to 25% of the population in 300 generations (7500 years), you need to have a gene that give you 5% more offsprings at each generation.

And distance. Not so much gene flow across the Mediterranean until we got good at sailing.

And climate. Milk was an advantage against other food sources available at the time in northern Europe, but this wasn't necessarily true elsewhere.

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

#112

Post by jmnicolas »

Why do they assume constant genetic bracing at that era, but these tribes could have been isolated and thus not gotten the gene.

Secondly, does not having the gene make drinking milk impossible? I'm pretty sure that when starving anything would go.

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

#113

Post by ema »

User23 wrote: post #57
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…

Bronze Age Europeans aren’t the ancestors of modern day Europeans. Thanks to modern genetic research we know that they were largely exterminated by invaders a few thousand years ago, at least on the yDNA lineages.

Didn't the bronce age end like three thousand years ago? It's my understanding that by that time the Indo-Europeans were already well established. Besides while they contributed a large fraction of the ancestry of contemporary Europeans a significant fraction of the ancestry is still from the middle eastern farmers which conquered Europe before them. Even if you only look at the Y chromosome, there is still quite a bit none R1 floating around.

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

#114

Post by golergka »

sterlind wrote: post #25
eloff wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 advant…

I didn't get the best education in public school - though I made up for it in college - but I did grow up with friends in vastly-different socioeconomic status than my own. There's a tragedy of the commons here: parents who can afford private schools and tutors for their kids set them up for more success, but it also saps funding for public schools and families that can't afford that. (Public education would be bette…

You're exercising your free choice between well-being of your own children and the community at large — and people who choose private tutors make their choice as well. It's great that people have that choice of how to use the money they earned.

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

#115

Post by paganel »

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

> those with lactase persistence are among the tallest in the world thanks to the massive caloric surplus

That doesn't explain men from Bosnia-Herzegovina and from the former Yugoslavia, generally speaking. Even Wikipedia [1] mentions that area as being above Nordic countries like Sweden when it comes to average male height.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_human_height_by_countr...

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

#116

Post by rrobukef »

adrianN wrote: post #100
bluGill wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get milk every day in a reasonable quantity. Before refrigeration killing a cow meant inviting the whole town to a feast at your house. Smaller animals can be eaten by one family before it spoils, but not a cow.

Salting, drying and various other methods for preserving meat have been known for a long time.

Yes, even with preserving there is too much meat. DDG says one cow has about 250 kg of meat. This is enough to feed a family for over a year.

There is also enough edible meat that cannot be preserved: the head, some organs. These are prepared immediately, hence the feast for the village.

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

#117

Post by raxxorrax »

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…

I think the actual genetic factors for lactose intolerance are very rare. It probably has more to do with gut flora and consumption.

I am slightly intolerant and have symptoms if I stuff myself with raw milk. Other than that it is no problem. I have a friend with the genetic condition and even he drinks milk. He does get problem quickly, but not if he drinks coffee with some milk or yogurt.

I think all people develop an intolerance with age naturally, but people that consume much milk will have that process slowed down. I think the genetic factors can just accelerate the process that is responsible to induce intolerance.

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

#118

Post by adwn »

davchana wrote: post #42
ardit33 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not a correct point of view. Your theory would be valid, if this didn't happen in other european countries that had no marketing whatsoever or 'evil big milk' industry behind.... Almost all former communist countries, gave lots of milk of children, whenever they could as it was universally considered healthy and nutritional. Also Milk, yogurt and cheese are staples of most Mediterranean diets, since like forev…

India too, have milk & its products as a major part of diet since millions of years. All the historical & mythological literature literally says Cow as a tree which gives life, so most of the time being called as Cow-mother. Kids of few hours to people almost near end of their life & everybody between uses milk. About till 20 years ago, many pet dogs & cats & their kids too were fed milk. Buffalo milk is denser & thu…

> [...] mythological literature [...]

Mythology and religious beliefs have no place in a rational discussion (except insofar as they're the subject of the discussion, which isn't the case here).

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

#119

Post by davchana »

adwn wrote: post #118
davchana wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

India too, have milk & its products as a major part of diet since millions of years. All the historical & mythological literature literally says Cow as a tree which gives life, so most of the time being called as Cow-mother. Kids of few hours to people almost near end of their life & everybody between uses milk. About till 20 years ago, many pet dogs & cats & their kids too were fed milk. Buffalo milk is denser & thu…

> [...] mythological literature [...] Mythology and religious beliefs have no place in a rational discussion (except insofar as they're the subject of the discussion, which isn't the case here).

Understood, how about saying, from long time ago, even before or from BCE era. The historical literature (not mythological) from last 1000-1500 years all mention various dairy products & milk.

The mythological part was only about the Cow as mother part.

The buffalo milk, dog cats kittens part is from my own experience in 1990s from there.

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

#120

Post by rsj_hn »

rrobukef wrote: post #116
adrianN wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salting, drying and various other methods for preserving meat have been known for a long time.

Yes, even with preserving there is too much meat. DDG says one cow has about 250 kg of meat. This is enough to feed a family for over a year. There is also enough edible meat that cannot be preserved: the head, some organs. These are prepared immediately, hence the feast for the village.

sure, so 400 families can support a population that kills a cow per day, eats some of the meat in the family and sells the rest of the meat.
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