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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

#171

Post by rsj_hn »

ttoinou wrote: post #152
olau wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much land would those 400 families need to feed their cows? I think most prehistoric settlements were small. Around where I live, perhaps 5-20 houses.

> Fun Fact: the word for "capital" derives from "cattle" "cheptel" (french) / cattle / capital seem to derive from "caput" / "capita" latin for head(s)

For the etymology, capital today can mean everything from the capital city of Spain is madrid, to a "capital crime", a capital column, etc. I refer you to the second meaning here:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/Capital

Since we are talking about neolithic cattle culture, the word does not come from Latin but from the PIE root "kaput" meaning "head", as in counting heads of cattle or the chief (principal) part of a loan as opposed to the interest paid, which is the secondary part.

The word "Cattle" also comes from "kaput".

Other words coming from "kaput" are "chapter", "chief", "caudillo".

My source for this is the AMAZING BOOK "A History of Interest Rates", by Sidney Homer, which is available on Amazon Kindle and is highly recommended for anyone interested in financial history.

Here is S.H.:

"Cattle breeding has supplied us with many financial terms used in later money economies. For example, there is our own word capital and our term pecuniary, from pecus, meaning a “flock” in Latin. Sumerians used the word mas for calves and for interest. The Egyptian term ms, meaning interest, is derived from the verb msj, which means “to give birth.” Early Greeks, in fact, valued their precious metals in terms of cattle. In the Odyssey one of the suitors promised to bring Ulysses a contribution “of bronze and gold to the value of twenty oxen.”

Cattle probably comprised the first true productive assets or capital of tribes or individuals. Ownership of cattle determined the social position of individuals and families and still does in parts of Africa and, indeed, in parts of the United States. Surplus labor could be stored and retained in the form of cattle. "

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

#172

Post by pvaldes »

bonoboTP wrote: post #43
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…

Why couldn't we evolve the ability to digest cellulose directly like cows, instead of going through cows? My guess: grazing takes extremely long and so we let cows do the boring job of grazing outside all day then we quickly slurp up whe harvested calories in just a few glasses of milk.

We don't have the right kind of tooth to graze

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

#173

Post by pvaldes »

bluGill wrote: post #93
jaggederest wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can convert cellulose into glucose but it takes things like this (special cultured bacteria, extremely processed cellulose, and an ultrafilter to remove glucose to drive the reaction): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bit.26022080... Or strong acids and 190°C over a catalyst. Cellulose is remarkably strong, especially with lignin in the structure too. We're lucky anything can digest it at all. Whic…

My understanding is cows don't digest cellulose either. They have those stomachs to provide an environment for bacteria that can to live. Cows then digest that bacteria. Which is digestion of course, but it isn't that cows can do it. Our large intestine does the same thing but it isn't anywhere near big enough to get a significant amount of energy from cellulose.

Seeing cows as bacteria eaters is a challenging but powerful image. Really clever point.

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

#174

Post by JacobAldridge »

burtonator wrote: post #72
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.

“Punctuated Equilibrium” - long periods of stability, and then short periods of great change.

I find it interesting to see the effect in other fields in my life - for example, I’ve been tracking net worth each month for almost a decade, and it follows a similar pattern of slow (or no) growth ... and then big jumps.

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

#175

Post by jagannathtech »

serf wrote: post #83
tus88 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you put it like that I understand why Indians worship cows.

Hindu folk revere cows, but not all folk from India are Hindu.

Well atleast their ancestors used to be

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

#176

Post by econcon »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #80
cozos wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

Or we can speculate the the societies where there is more freedom are taller.

It could also be sexual selection as this stature change is too fast and usually the environment difference takes several hundred generations to show difference.

The timeline is so small I'd argue it's actually free society enabling people to chase their sexual imperitive and this sexual selection is resulting in taller population, not nutrition.

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

#177

Post by [deleted] »

feintruled wrote: post #140

Interesting factoid about lactose tolerance and geography - in Ireland we are big milk drinkers. Growing up I hadn't even heard of anyone being intolerant. And indeed Ireland has the lowest incidence in the world: https://milk.procon.org/lactose-intolerance-by-country/ I wonder how this came to be?

[deleted]

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

#178

Post by njarboe »

eru wrote: post #137
njarboe wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A way to store a surplus food that contains high protean and fat is another huge benefit of dairy. Hard cheeses can be stored for years in the right conditions and these conditions are achievable for ancient people (caves).

And if done right, the cheese becomes tastier as it ages. Not as important today, but more important back then: aging your cheese also concentrates the salt. Salty foods are tasty.

Good point. Back then salt was valuable in places just short distances from the ocean. Humans need salt, especially when doing hard physical labor, sweating all day.

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

#179

Post by ttoinou »

rsj_hn wrote: post #171
ttoinou wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fun Fact: the word for "capital" derives from "cattle" "cheptel" (french) / cattle / capital seem to derive from "caput" / "capita" latin for head(s)

For the etymology, capital today can mean everything from the capital city of Spain is madrid, to a "capital crime", a capital column, etc. I refer you to the second meaning here: https://www.etymonline.com/word/Capital Since we are talking about neolithic cattle culture, the word does not come from Latin but from the PIE root "kaput" meaning "head", as in counting heads of cattle or the chief (principal) part of a l…

caput, kaput, that's what I'm saying

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

#180

Post by rsj_hn »

ttoinou wrote: post #179
rsj_hn wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the etymology, capital today can mean everything from the capital city of Spain is madrid, to a "capital crime", a capital column, etc. I refer you to the second meaning here: https://www.etymonline.com/word/Capital Since we are talking about neolithic cattle culture, the word does not come from Latin but from the PIE root "kaput" meaning "head", as in counting heads of cattle or the chief (principal) part of a l…

caput, kaput, that's what I'm saying

Yeah, I should have said "both capital and cattle come from the same PIE root, originally used in a financial sense when referring to heads of cattle".
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