Direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus
Milk is a major food of global economic importance, and its consumption is regarded as a classic example of gene-culture evolution. Humans have exploited animal milk as a food resource for at least 8500 years, but the origins, spread, and scale of dairying remain poorly understood. Indirect lines of...
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ftdatacite:10.3929/ethz-b-000094737 2023-05-15T16:29:27+02:00 Direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus Warinner, Christina Hendy, Jessica Speller, Camilla F. Cappellini, Enrico Fischer, R. Trachsel, Christian Arneborg, Jette Lynnerup, Niels Craig, Oliver E. Swallow, Dallas M. Fotakis, Anna K. Christensen, R.J. Olsen, Jesper V. Liebert, Anke Montalva, N. Fiddyment, Sarah Charlton, Sophy Mackie, Meaghan Canci, Alessandro Bouwman, Abigail S. Rühli, Frank J. Gilbert, Thomas M.P. Collins, Matthew J. 2014 application/pdf https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000094737 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/94737 en eng ETH Zurich info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 CC-BY zoology Proteomics Biomarkers Archaeology Text article-journal Journal Article ScholarlyArticle 2014 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000094737 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z Milk is a major food of global economic importance, and its consumption is regarded as a classic example of gene-culture evolution. Humans have exploited animal milk as a food resource for at least 8500 years, but the origins, spread, and scale of dairying remain poorly understood. Indirect lines of evidence, such as lipid isotopic ratios of pottery residues, faunal mortality profiles, and lactase persistence allele frequencies, provide a partial picture of this process; however, in order to understand how, where, and when humans consumed milk products, it is necessary to link evidence of consumption directly to individuals and their dairy livestock. Here we report the first direct evidence of milk consumption, the whey protein β-lactoglobulin (BLG), preserved in human dental calculus from the Bronze Age (ca. 3000 BCE) to the present day. Using protein tandem mass spectrometry, we demonstrate that BLG is a species-specific biomarker of dairy consumption, and we identify individuals consuming cattle, sheep, and goat milk products in the archaeological record. We then apply this method to human dental calculus from Greenland's medieval Norse colonies, and report a decline of this biomarker leading up to the abandonment of the Norse Greenland colonies in the 15th century CE. : Scientific Reports, 4 : ISSN:2045-2322 Text Greenland DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Greenland |
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Open Polar |
collection |
DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
op_collection_id |
ftdatacite |
language |
English |
topic |
zoology Proteomics Biomarkers Archaeology |
spellingShingle |
zoology Proteomics Biomarkers Archaeology Warinner, Christina Hendy, Jessica Speller, Camilla F. Cappellini, Enrico Fischer, R. Trachsel, Christian Arneborg, Jette Lynnerup, Niels Craig, Oliver E. Swallow, Dallas M. Fotakis, Anna K. Christensen, R.J. Olsen, Jesper V. Liebert, Anke Montalva, N. Fiddyment, Sarah Charlton, Sophy Mackie, Meaghan Canci, Alessandro Bouwman, Abigail S. Rühli, Frank J. Gilbert, Thomas M.P. Collins, Matthew J. Direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus |
topic_facet |
zoology Proteomics Biomarkers Archaeology |
description |
Milk is a major food of global economic importance, and its consumption is regarded as a classic example of gene-culture evolution. Humans have exploited animal milk as a food resource for at least 8500 years, but the origins, spread, and scale of dairying remain poorly understood. Indirect lines of evidence, such as lipid isotopic ratios of pottery residues, faunal mortality profiles, and lactase persistence allele frequencies, provide a partial picture of this process; however, in order to understand how, where, and when humans consumed milk products, it is necessary to link evidence of consumption directly to individuals and their dairy livestock. Here we report the first direct evidence of milk consumption, the whey protein β-lactoglobulin (BLG), preserved in human dental calculus from the Bronze Age (ca. 3000 BCE) to the present day. Using protein tandem mass spectrometry, we demonstrate that BLG is a species-specific biomarker of dairy consumption, and we identify individuals consuming cattle, sheep, and goat milk products in the archaeological record. We then apply this method to human dental calculus from Greenland's medieval Norse colonies, and report a decline of this biomarker leading up to the abandonment of the Norse Greenland colonies in the 15th century CE. : Scientific Reports, 4 : ISSN:2045-2322 |
format |
Text |
author |
Warinner, Christina Hendy, Jessica Speller, Camilla F. Cappellini, Enrico Fischer, R. Trachsel, Christian Arneborg, Jette Lynnerup, Niels Craig, Oliver E. Swallow, Dallas M. Fotakis, Anna K. Christensen, R.J. Olsen, Jesper V. Liebert, Anke Montalva, N. Fiddyment, Sarah Charlton, Sophy Mackie, Meaghan Canci, Alessandro Bouwman, Abigail S. Rühli, Frank J. Gilbert, Thomas M.P. Collins, Matthew J. |
author_facet |
Warinner, Christina Hendy, Jessica Speller, Camilla F. Cappellini, Enrico Fischer, R. Trachsel, Christian Arneborg, Jette Lynnerup, Niels Craig, Oliver E. Swallow, Dallas M. Fotakis, Anna K. Christensen, R.J. Olsen, Jesper V. Liebert, Anke Montalva, N. Fiddyment, Sarah Charlton, Sophy Mackie, Meaghan Canci, Alessandro Bouwman, Abigail S. Rühli, Frank J. Gilbert, Thomas M.P. Collins, Matthew J. |
author_sort |
Warinner, Christina |
title |
Direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus |
title_short |
Direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus |
title_full |
Direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus |
title_fullStr |
Direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus |
title_full_unstemmed |
Direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus |
title_sort |
direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus |
publisher |
ETH Zurich |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000094737 http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11850/94737 |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
Greenland |
genre_facet |
Greenland |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode cc-by-4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000094737 |
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1766019158963650560 |