00:00.50 Alex We? Ah and we are back with archaeo animals episode 61 we are talking about the zo archeology of dairy and now we're actually going to talk about the zo archeology of dairy because we kind of just spent the first part talking about like the whole history and what dairy was all that kind of nonsense. But now we'll actually get to how do we find Dairy Zoo archaeologically and archeologically like we said in the beginning. It's not really going to be a bone heavy episode. Although we can kind of use bones. So let's get to that part first. Basically you know. If you find cattle remains. There's probably a good chance milk was being consumed on this site I mean it's probably the most common most important source of evidence for dairying. Um, although sometimes circumstantial. I mean if you look at kind of domestic sites across Europe during the late neolithic to the early bronze age. You do see the number of cattle bones increase overall as far as numbers. However, of course the presence of cattle doesn't entirely mean. Dairying because obviously cows are used for a variety of other products too. 01:21.20 Cpt Granarius Which takes us back to our mortality profiles which I have ah very very heavily hinted at in the last segment. No Go Yes, if you draw a mortality profile through identifying the age at death sort of your assemblage. You might be able to get. Ah, better idea of what sort of primary and secondary products were being produced on that site. So a daring herd as again, a very heavily hindered at in a previous segment. We'll have a very specific looking profile in as much you'll see the early cull of young individuals and the retention of the older ones. Because of course you know if all the milk that the cow is producing is going to the offspring then well there's no milk for you. It? yeah. 02:02.70 Alex Yeah, and this kind of mortality profile isn't just for cattle. It goes for basically any of the kind of animals that produce milk that humans utilize. 02:15.10 Cpt Granarius Like I said the way you could look also to an extent a sexing if you can do sexing in your assemblage because it can be tricky with the small fragments you get sometimes because of course you'll see sort of a fairly substantial population of females with only so the odd male here and there as opposed. You know if you're using them for Strat up for traction. 02:25.31 Alex Um, you. 02:34.96 Cpt Granarius Ah, steers like a strated males were quite often implemented for traction so you might see a higher population of steers instead which how do I tell the difference between a steer and a bull is just it's ah it's male, but it's longer. It's a long boy. And to be lancia. 02:52.90 Alex And believe me archeologists Love when you write that on your site reports little Boy Elie Loan boy. 02:56.88 Cpt Granarius Long boy. So what ever like a long boy for up now like sheep and goat remain. Yeah. 03:11.60 Alex Yes, sheep Slash Goat remains. 03:15.46 Cpt Granarius So You know a joke and then got lost halfway through. So um, we'll move on to your sheep sheep slash goat remains because as we've ah again, hinted at in a plethora of episodes. It is ah sometimes quite tricky to tell the difference between sheep and goat. As in like most of their Appendic Skeleton looks basically identical. So. There's some very very sort of fuse sort of visual cues. But most of it is down to biometry which don't go there. Um so but sheep Goat. Um. 03:44.59 Alex No, no yes and o v cap o v cap 3 ah the zo archeologist friend. 03:55.74 Cpt Granarius Yeah, the Ovi capita from like ah obvious Aius just the scientific name for the sheep and capa here of course just the one for goat. So yeah, Ovi Capid a good old friend. Um but sheep and goat and goats. Much like cattle also particularly important for people especially in arid environments as both speeches are actually well suited for post post-climatic stress recovery even though sheep have more of a pension to just die compared to goats. Um, but especially goats will even reproduce much faster following events such as drought. Ah um, forgot the word for goat for a minute goats just being overall hardier and just happier even in more like steep terrain and more like spares vegetation compared to sheep. Um, as an example, ah, east african pastoralists likely used ah both sheep and goat quite often for milk. 04:58.82 Alex As They obviously lived in very arid environments and that would be kind of the best way forward and goats in particular are interesting to think about with dairying because Goats May or may not have been one of the earlier. Species did't be domesticated again very much up in the air whether or not that's true, but it could possibly mean that if there was a lot of early milking going on. They may have been kind of one of the earlier ones who knows ah. 05:26.60 Cpt Granarius Um, and I guess you'd also be a way to ease yourself into it because isn't goat milk either I does he have less lactose or is it just just generally just more digestible for people that are generally very unhappy with dairy. 05:40.56 Alex Yeah I think it might be which also kind of leads towards maybe that beginning I mean to be fair, we already can't tell like when the earliest milking was happening let alone species but I think you could probably put some money on goats maybe being. 05:59.53 Cpt Granarius Yes, know like maybe you tried a cow's milk be like oh no, no, that's like no, that's that that's too much. You're gonna work my way up. We'll start with goat just ease myself and do this whole dairy thing that someone's telling me. It's good for me. 06:00.19 Alex 1 of the earlier ones over cattle although cattle. Obviously yeah. 06:15.73 Alex This is beginner milk. We'll start with the beginner milk with goats and we'll move to more advanced milk which is cattle. 06:23.41 Cpt Granarius Um, yes, ah another thing So Trace left on the bones that may indicate milking and that is something that is new to me actually is ah looking at mettapodial thickness of sheep and goat. So like the cortical layer of the bones or the outer layer of the metapoldials ah appear to thin due to large scale milking activities and it also occurse with increased frequencies of older female individuals in assemblages. 06:50.45 Alex Yeah I'm not I'm actually not 100% sure on the metapolio thickness I think it's been used before but not potentially something that's like a major signifier I think it's kind of correlated with other evidence to suggest milking. With goats and sheep. 07:12.43 Cpt Granarius It because also I would guess like um was like thining of bones isn't something that would generally happen to older individuals. Anyway. 07:21.38 Alex I Think that might actually be the the bigger signifier but that was kind of what some research was doing looking at so I guess it was one characteristic out of a few to kind of identify populations that may have been used for milking. 07:38.26 Cpt Granarius Well, as for everything if you've got your Bingo cards. It's another piece of the puzzle. So by itself it doesn't necessarily prove your theory but when you put all the pieces of the puzzle together. You recreated this wonderful picture that is archaeology. This was arch you animals. 07:54.49 Alex Yeah I mean that's kind of the theme of this episode is you know you can use all of these things individually evidence but it's not really strong evidence for dairying. But if you put some of them together. You get a pretty good case and of course what makes it more complicated is that it's not just about cattle or sheep or goats. Depending on where you are could be other animals such as yak donkeys Buffalo again I think we've talked about ah some of these animals before in previous episodes but just to be real quick. You know it's very culturally and environmentally dependent. You know, many mammals produce milk. And humans are incredibly resourceful species for better or worse. So for example, yak were particularly important as their milk is really high in fat and it's obviously really useful then for the kind of freezing environments that they and their human companions live in and. Interestingly, you could also be used to make candles and lamps. Ah, but oh. 08:54.65 Cpt Granarius And and again I I wonder whether yak milk is also more digestible than Cow's milk in a way just because like the purely nonscientific thought here. But I've seen especially in recent years there's been sort of a spike in sale of yak chews for dogs. 09:11.83 Alex Oh interesting. 09:14.20 Cpt Granarius Which of course are obviously lactose intolerant because you know you tolerate lactose as long as you're sort of feeding from your mother and then they are weaned and then they don't have dairy anymore as it happens to every other species but us. 09:29.18 archpodnet That is. 09:31.12 Cpt Granarius I've just powered through the struggle Hope you that no I don't care if it makes me Ill I'm gonna have it anyway. 09:33.90 Alex Yeah, we will actually talk about that more scientifically in a second but the other thing to kind of note is that it's. 09:36.23 archpodnet Um, is that really bad that um sorry I'm sorry to intertake is it really bad that I give Bruno um a yak to is that bad. He seems to really like them. 09:48.14 Cpt Granarius But enough Also no no several peoples that do and get but like its I guess its better, thanestible natural yoga tends to be okay. 09:51.45 archpodnet Yeah, but like if he's blacked with tolerance. He's also had yogurt before yeah, you used to really like yogurt. Ah, okay, thank you. 10:05.91 Cpt Granarius But again I think has fermented the the fermentation process I think does decrease the lactose in the product and also like the more ah the more a cheese is matured the less lactose will have so um, like think parmesan especially if you get sort of the turbo like you know thirty month aged it have. 10:13.90 archpodnet Um, ah, okay, so and so. 10:19.15 archpodnet My ear. 10:25.89 Cpt Granarius Considerably less lactose than say ricota. 10:26.78 archpodnet Okay, right gotcha got you no way. So Bruno can my dog Bruno can have like old cheese but can have new cheese gotcha. Thank you for putting my mind at rest on a moderation. 10:39.96 Cpt Granarius Yeah, just in moderation if I in moderation a disclaimer I am not a dog nutritionist. 10:44.64 Alex Yes. 10:46.52 archpodnet What's moderation when it comes to cheese. 10:53.20 archpodnet The very important disclaimer. 10:57.56 Alex Well I am a zora geologist and I can say that when we do talk about dairying. We're not just talking about individual species. Ah people will use multiple species probably at the same time. So for example. British Neolithic dental calculus which we'll talk about in a second suggests that sheep and goats and cows were all used at the same time for milk and obviously that's the same case kind of in the modern day. The various types of milk including non dairy ones. Thank goodness. 11:29.54 Cpt Granarius Do you think they tried to mix it all at the same time like a turbo glass of milk. 11:33.58 Alex Oh Simona Simona we will talk about that later on in this episode. Don't worry. 11:41.14 Cpt Granarius Also like also because like british neolithic what is a glass what don't know. But anyway um, but yes as ah Alex is hinted at um. 11:55.98 Cpt Granarius So we can um, get an idea of dairy consumption also by looking at um, human remains and specifically at the evidence of the traitors of dairy consumption leaves on the human body. Um, the adaptation to dairy may have even. Driven an intensive selection for the gene adaptation of lactase persistence. So lp which allows for lacto suggestion by adults. Um, but ah Alex was sadly not chosen for this adaptation. 12:26.59 Alex I'm not Lp I'm sadly I'm not um to be fair, It's also something that's kind of relatively new as far as the research and it's still being debated. As there's now evidence for low Lp being found in the Olympic populations that also have other evidence of dairying so it could be that milk consumption back then was very low. It may have been processed in a way to remove lactose like fermentation or created into different cheeses. Or Dairy may have been used in a non-consumptive way which we will also discuss later on you who knows. 13:03.51 Cpt Granarius Or all of those things. Um, yeah so research looking into the african origins of dairying used dairy proteins found founded the dental calculus of human teeth. Um for the uninitiated Calculus is mineralized plaque. Um, they've used that data to identify regions that adopted adapted early to consuming dairy. Um, the proteins can even be sort of narrowed down to guess the family. So for cows would be bovi the obvious for ah sheep at capra for um. Goat I keep forgetting the word for goat. It's it's a day. Um, however, there's still some issues with speech cenentification via calculus for example, yak, our good old friend. The yak is particularly difficult to identify due to only deferring from other bobon species by. 1 single trip dig peptide. So yeah. 14:01.10 Alex Yeah God I don't glad I don't do that anymore that seems annoying. 14:11.69 Cpt Granarius But I guess we have we looked at Mortalityity Profiles. We've looked at the dead Animals. We've looked at ah the human remains. Um, but there's also another way. Um, where you could sort of find evidence of a dairy consumption or production. Which is daring related artifacts. Ah which is like most commonly will be in the form of a container used for holding Dairy products. Um, So normally these are made out ceramic. There are certain ceramic typologies. In fact, that can be um, sort of. 14:48.53 Cpt Granarius And I saw that sentence again. Um there are sort of certainerap ceramic typologies which were created ah to so for use in dairying most likely. Ah, so for example in Prehistoric Finland cored wear pottery. Likely aligns with substenance practices and dairy consumption becoming normalized. Um, you also get you good old cheese pots. Um for what they're known as ah, it's perforated ceramic vessels used to strain cheese. So we have like the only this example is from about seven thousand years ago in Poland but you also find those throughout make sure you've got your bingo cards Ready Roman Britain lots of cheaps cheese pots which I love to personally call colanders. 15:37.60 Alex Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right of. 15:37.62 Cpt Granarius Because they also look like a colander but then but then which came first the cheese strainer of the colander probably the cheese strainer. Yeah. 15:47.70 Alex So so along with that you get your regular bowls which are associated with these strainers to kind of hold the way that get separated. However, these kind of strainers or coloners can be tricky to identify as their. May have also been used as ah sieves for other products like honey being separated from beeswax and we also actually find artistic representations of dairying and milking as well. So in ancient Mesopotamia we see various wall artts that shows milking. And even dairy herds depicted on cylinder seals including depictions of little milk vessels as well. Which is really cool. Ah, ah. 16:32.84 Cpt Granarius Um, yeah I'm gonna go on a very slight tangent because you mentioned bowls that were associated with the strainers which will be used to sort of capture the way you would do that because the way um is good to keep because you can use it again and again and again. Um. Because once you have your way from cheese Baking. You can actually reuse that as the acidic substance to make more cheese. Um, no um. 16:55.10 Alex Oh I didn't know that but I'm not as crafty and handy as you are. 17:03.63 Cpt Granarius And also again on a slight cheese tangent and like everyone's probably familiar with the cheese ricota just actually named that way because it literally means cooked twice because then you have your cheese making you get your curds. You make your cheese out of it now if you get the way and you heat it again. Some more kurds will form. That's your ricotta. She's literally cooked again. 17:25.77 Alex Um, now probably the most important piece of daring evidence particularly in the last decade couple decades I guess is lipid analysis and probably that's. How most research today is basing their analysis of kind of dairying in the past so residue from ceramics can be analyzed for lipids which are molecules that are insolable in water and includes fats oils and waxes. And then these can actually be further analyzed to distinguish fat origins including dairy fat now. Of course this becomes a bit complicated depending on cultural norms. So for example early african pastoralists actually use gourds rather than ceramics to store milk so you wouldn't really be able to use little bit analysis on that. Um, and it's just extremely common way to kind of identify ceramics that were used for milk and for cheesemaking because like we said you know from just looking at it with your eye. And may be difficult to differentiate ceramics based on what they were used for but with lipid analysis. We can get a better idea of what was actually inside those ceramics but at the end of the day and as simmona said ultimately the best case scenario for looking at dairy in the past is the kind of a combination. 18:54.30 Alex Of all these different evidences to prove ah to produce a strong case for having dairy in the site you're looking at. 19:06.23 Cpt Granarius And while we put together this puzzle. We will take a break. 19:07.17 Alex Yes, ah my cat screaming. 19:14.28 Cpt Granarius Me too.