From the Archives: A 3,200-year-old piece of cheese from Egypt is providing more evidence about how humans evolved to consume dairy products.
For most of human history, adults lost the ability to consume milk after infancy—and the same is true of people who are lactose intolerant today. After weaning, people with lactose intolerance can no longer produce. This is necessary to break down the lactose sugars in fresh milk into compounds that can be easily digested. People with lactose intolerance experience unpleasant symptoms if they consume dairy products, such as bloating, flatulence, and diarrhea.
This map shows the percentage of adults that can digest lactose in the Indigenous populations of the Old World. Circles mark sample locations.on human skeletons from prehistoric Europe places the earliest appearance of the lactase gene —which keeps adults producing lactase—at 2500 B.C. But there is plenty of evidence from the Neolithic period that milk was being consumed.
This is not totally surprising though, as the Neolithic marks the start of farming in most regions of Europe—and the first time humans lived closely alongside animals. And although they were unable to digest milk, we know that Neolithic populations were processing milk into substances they could consume., sherds of ancient pottery can be analyzed and fats absorbed into the clay identified. This then allows archaeologists to find out what was cooked or processed inside them.
Although it is not yet possible to identify the species of animal, dairy fats can be distinguished. It is also challenging to determine what techniques were being used to make dairy products safe to consume, with many potential options. Fermenting milk, for example, breaks down the lactose sugar into lactic acid. Cheese is low in lactose because it involves separating curd from whey, in which the majority of the lactose sugars remain.
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