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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Springer Science and Business Media LLC
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Online Access: | https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/285860 https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.33204 |
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ftunivcam:oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/285860 2024-02-04T10:00:52+01:00 Direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus. Warinner, C Hendy, J Speller, C Cappellini, E Fischer, R Trachsel, C Arneborg, J Lynnerup, N Craig, OE Swallow, DM Fotakis, A Christensen, RJ Olsen, JV Liebert, A Montalva, N Fiddyment, S Charlton, S Mackie, M Canci, A Bouwman, A Rühli, F Gilbert, MTP Collins, MJ 2014-11-27 Electronic application/pdf https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/285860 https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.33204 eng eng Springer Science and Business Media LLC http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep07104 Sci Rep https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/285860 doi:10.17863/CAM.33204 Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Animals Archaeology Biological Evolution Cattle Dairy Products Dental Calculus Humans Lactoglobulins Milk Sheep Tandem Mass Spectrometry Article 2014 ftunivcam https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.33204 2024-01-11T23:27:42Z 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 15(th) century CE. Article in Journal/Newspaper Greenland Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository Greenland |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftunivcam |
language |
English |
topic |
Animals Archaeology Biological Evolution Cattle Dairy Products Dental Calculus Humans Lactoglobulins Milk Sheep Tandem Mass Spectrometry |
spellingShingle |
Animals Archaeology Biological Evolution Cattle Dairy Products Dental Calculus Humans Lactoglobulins Milk Sheep Tandem Mass Spectrometry Warinner, C Hendy, J Speller, C Cappellini, E Fischer, R Trachsel, C Arneborg, J Lynnerup, N Craig, OE Swallow, DM Fotakis, A Christensen, RJ Olsen, JV Liebert, A Montalva, N Fiddyment, S Charlton, S Mackie, M Canci, A Bouwman, A Rühli, F Gilbert, MTP Collins, MJ Direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus. |
topic_facet |
Animals Archaeology Biological Evolution Cattle Dairy Products Dental Calculus Humans Lactoglobulins Milk Sheep Tandem Mass Spectrometry |
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 15(th) century CE. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Warinner, C Hendy, J Speller, C Cappellini, E Fischer, R Trachsel, C Arneborg, J Lynnerup, N Craig, OE Swallow, DM Fotakis, A Christensen, RJ Olsen, JV Liebert, A Montalva, N Fiddyment, S Charlton, S Mackie, M Canci, A Bouwman, A Rühli, F Gilbert, MTP Collins, MJ |
author_facet |
Warinner, C Hendy, J Speller, C Cappellini, E Fischer, R Trachsel, C Arneborg, J Lynnerup, N Craig, OE Swallow, DM Fotakis, A Christensen, RJ Olsen, JV Liebert, A Montalva, N Fiddyment, S Charlton, S Mackie, M Canci, A Bouwman, A Rühli, F Gilbert, MTP Collins, MJ |
author_sort |
Warinner, C |
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 |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/285860 https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.33204 |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
Greenland |
genre_facet |
Greenland |
op_relation |
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/285860 doi:10.17863/CAM.33204 |
op_rights |
Attribution 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.33204 |
_version_ |
1789966385952063488 |