Ancient proteins provide evidence of dairy consumption in eastern Africa

Madeleine Bleasdale (), Kristine K. Richter, Anneke Janzen, Samantha Brown, Ashley Scott, Jana Zech, Shevan Wilkin, Ke Wang, Stephan Schiffels, Jocelyne Desideri, Marie Besse, Jacques Reinold, Mohamed Saad, Hiba Babiker, Robert C. Power, Emmanuel Ndiema, Christine Ogola, Fredrick K. Manthi, Muhammad Zahir, Michael Petraglia, Christian Trachsel, Paolo Nanni, Jonas Grossmann, Jessica Hendy, Alison Crowther, Patrick Roberts, Steven T. Goldstein and Nicole Boivin ()
Additional contact information
Madeleine Bleasdale: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kristine K. Richter: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Anneke Janzen: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Samantha Brown: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Ashley Scott: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Jana Zech: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Shevan Wilkin: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Ke Wang: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Stephan Schiffels: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Jocelyne Desideri: Université de Genève
Marie Besse: Université de Genève
Jacques Reinold: Section française de la Direction des antiquités du Soudan
Mohamed Saad: M.Bolheim Bioarchaeology Laboratory
Hiba Babiker: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Robert C. Power: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Emmanuel Ndiema: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Christine Ogola: National Museums of Kenya
Fredrick K. Manthi: National Museums of Kenya
Muhammad Zahir: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Michael Petraglia: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Christian Trachsel: University of Zurich/ETH
Paolo Nanni: University of Zurich/ETH
Jonas Grossmann: University of Zurich/ETH
Jessica Hendy: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Alison Crowther: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Patrick Roberts: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Steven T. Goldstein: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Nicole Boivin: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Consuming the milk of other species is a unique adaptation of Homo sapiens, with implications for health, birth spacing and evolution. Key questions nonetheless remain regarding the origins of dairying and its relationship to the genetically-determined ability to drink milk into adulthood through lactase persistence (LP). As a major centre of LP diversity, Africa is of significant interest to the evolution of dairying. Here we report proteomic evidence for milk consumption in ancient Africa. Using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) we identify dairy proteins in human dental calculus from northeastern Africa, directly demonstrating milk consumption at least six millennia ago. Our findings indicate that pastoralist groups were drinking milk as soon as herding spread into eastern Africa, at a time when the genetic adaptation for milk digestion was absent or rare. Our study links LP status in specific ancient individuals with direct evidence for their consumption of dairy products.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20682-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-20682-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20682-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().