Chemical
analysis of pottery reveals first dairying in Saharan Africa in the fifth
millennium BC
Press
release issued 20 June 2012
The first
unequivocal evidence that humans in prehistoric Saharan Africa used cattle for
their milk nearly 7,000 years ago is described in research by an international
team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, UK, published today in
Nature.
By
analysing fatty acids extracted from unglazed pottery excavated from an
archaeological site in Libya, the researchers showed that dairy fats were
processed in the vessels. This first
identification of dairying practices in the African continent, by prehistoric
Saharan herders, can be reliably dated to the fifth millennium BC.
Around
10,000 years ago the Sahara Desert was a wetter, greener place; early
hunter-gatherer people in the area lived a semi-sedentary life, utilising
pottery, hunting wild game and collecting wild cereals. Then, around 7,000-5,000 years ago as the
region became more arid, the people adopted a more nomadic, pastoral way of
life, as the presence of cattle bones in cave deposits and river camps
suggests.
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