Earliest Date for Milk Use in the Near East and Southeastern Europe Linked to Cattle Herding
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The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium bc. Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals-that is, traction and wool-the first clear evidence for these appears much later, from the late fifth and fourth millennia bc. Hence, the timing and region in which milking was first practised remain unknown. Organic residues preserved in archaeological pottery have provided direct evidence for the use of milk in the fourth millennium in Britain, and in the sixth millennium in eastern Europe, based on the delta(13)C values of the major fatty acids of milk fat. Here we apply this approach to more than 2,200 pottery vessels from sites in the Near East and southeastern Europe dating from the fifth to the seventh millennia bc. We show that milk was in use by the seventh millennium; this is the earliest direct evidence to date. Milking was particularly important in northwestern Anatolia, pointing to regional differences linked with conditions more favourable to cattle compared to other regions, where sheep and goats were relatively common and milk use less important. The latter is supported by correlations between the fat type and animal bone evidence.
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By 7000 years ago, evidence of milk consumption was found in pottery from burial sites in both the Near East and southeastern Europe.
“Additionally, by 7000 years ago, evidence of milk consumption was found in pottery from burial sites in both the Near East and southeastern Europe [25].”
From The Genomic Landscape of Cattle: Domestication, Dispersal, and Adaptive Evolution (2026) · cites this paper as [25]
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- Authors
- Evershed, R. P., Payne, S., Sherratt, A. G., Copley, M. S., Coolidge, J., Urem-Kotsu, D., Kotsakis, K., Özdoğan, M., Özdoğan, A. E., Nieuwenhuyse, O., Akkermans, P. M. M. G., Bailey, D., Andeescu, R.-R., Campbell, S., Farid, S., Hodder, I., Yalman, N., Özbaşaran, M., Bıçakcı, E., Garfinkel, Y., Levy, T., & Burton, M. M.
- Affiliations
- University of Bristol (GB)
- English Heritage (GB)
- University of Sheffield (GB)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR)
- Istanbul University (TR)
- Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi (TR)
- Leiden University (NL)
- University of Manchester (GB)
- University College London (GB)
- Stanford University (US)
- Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL)
- University of California San Diego (US)
- Corresponding author
- Evershed, Richard P.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2008-08-06
- Volume
- 455
- Issue
- 7212
- Pages
- 528-531
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2061473410
- Cited by
- 681
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 31 · 2025: 31 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 46 · 2022: 47 · 2021: 63 · 2020: 58 · 2019: 53 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 43 · 2016: 37 · 2015: 34 · 2014: 45 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 43
- FWCI
- 14.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (publishedVersion)
- Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University AVESIS (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University Institutional Repository (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Bristol Research (University of Bristol) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Northwestern University
- Leverhulme Trust
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil and Environmental Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology › Archaeological and Geological Studies
- Keywords
- milking, cattle domestication, carbon isotopes, Neolithic, Near East, Southeastern Europe, Anatolia, sheep and goats, animal husbandry
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cattle, Ceramics, Dairying, Europe, Europe, Eastern, Fatty Acids, Goats, Humans, Meat, Milk, Sheep, History, Ancient
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