So Indoeuropean

Have a look at these two vessels:

Neolithic Lengyel culture (5000-3400 BC)

Chalcholitic Baden culture (3600–2800 BC) which developed from Lengyel culture...

Lengyel culture guys, were neolithic farmers who, just like their neighbors, Stroke-ornamented ware culture guys, liked building giant henges, enclosures oriented to the sunrises at solstices and stuff...

I talked about this in my post "Henges - Rondel enclosures"

Then (apparently) came Indo-Europeans and turned Neolithic, Old Europe, Matriarchal, Peaceful, Farming Lengyel culture into Chalcholitic, Indo-European, Patriarchal, Warrior, Cattle herding Baden culture...By presumably killing the men, taking the women...

Gimbutas and then Mallory and Adams talk about Baden culture as one which is associated with the spread of Indo-Europeans because "It possesses a number of cultural traits that have been regarded as diagnostic markers of Indo-European society"...

Like:

1. Use and breeding of domesticated horses...

2. Economy based on animal husbandry, especially cattle herding...

3. Use of wheeled vehicles, probably pulled by cattle...

4. Building of fortified settlements...

5. Making and usage of lots and lost of metal weapons and tools...

6. Human sacrifices...

7. Patriarchate, discerned from the appearance of  male "chief" graves...

And finally

8. The invention of alcohol and drinking parties...

Typical: Drunk cowboys....

So no wonder Baden dudes were seen as "Prototypical Indo-Europeanised culture dominated by Kurgan males"...

Which is funny, considering that Baden guys had Neolithic Megalith builders (I2a) and farmers (G2a) male genes...The same ones we find in their Neolithic ancestors...

Now look at the original two vessels again. Both depict a young woman. The Baden one is actually an elaboration on the Lengyel one. It actually gives us a clue who this "young woman" could be: a grain maiden from later folklore...Look at the grain sheaves arms...I talked about this in my post "Baden culture grain maiden"...

Not very Indoeuropeany...

Milk Butter Cheese

This very interesting vessel was discovered in Baden culture (3600–2800 BC) settlement Balatonőszöd in Hungary...

It is one of many such objects discovered in Baden culture settlements. Here is another one...

The same type of objects crop up all along the East Mediterranean coast, Anatolia, Balkans and Central Europe during the 4th millennium BC...

Like these ones: 

1. Troy 2 (2500-2200BC)

2. Troy 1 (3000-2500BC)

3. Termi, Lesbos (3000-2500BC)

Here is another one from Lemnos from the same period

In Central Europe, these objects continue to crop up in the same area during the whole of Bronze Age. Like this one found in Érd settlement of the middle Brzonse Age Vatya culture (2000-1500BC) in Hungary

And this one found in the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture (1300 – 750 BC) settlement Thunau am Kamp, Austria

These objects were interpreted as a butter churns...Because of this: A figurine of a seated woman (goddess???) holding a small mortar (altar???) under her left arm and holding a milk churn on her head with her right hand. Chalcolithic period (4500-3500 BC), Gilat, Israel

These churns, used for making butter from milk, first appeared during this period. To speed up the churning process, a rope was tied to the handles, and the churn was rocked back and forth...

This is how the actual ceramic churns are still used today...

These ceramic butter churns were clay versions of much older sheep (or goat) skin churns, like this one still used by Beduins in 20th century...

The working principle was the same: the vessel was filled with milk and then rocked and shaken to separate butter and buttermilk. Huge number of these vessels was found in Levant in the area settled by Ghassulian people...

And here is figurine from En Gedi, showing a cow carrying two of these milk churns on her back

What is very interesting is that apart from "the real deal" big functional vessels, a large number of small "models" of these vessels were also found...Red dots: real big vessels discovered in Baden culture settlements. Blue dots small "model" (???) vessels discovered in Baden culture settlements:

The reason for making these small vessels is debated...Were they toys? Or religious symbols?

But there is one big question that these vessels open is "When did Europeans start consuming milk and milk products"??? In order for adults to be able to consume milk, they have to have to be lactose tolerant. 

So when did "Science" tell us that Europeans developed lactose tolerance? Apparently "New findings suggest lactose tolerance spread throughout Central Europe in just last few thousand years".  The researchers came to this conclusion by testing the genetic material from the bones of people who died during a Bronze Age battle around 1200 BCE on the banks of Tollense river. 

Five years ago, I wrote an article about this battle. Based on the data available then, I proposed that "Tollense battle" was not, like everyone thought, "the largest Bronze age battle between two armies" but an attack on a caravan...Apparently "new data" proves me right 🙂 

What the researches found is that only 20% of the Bronze Age warriors had a genetic variant that enabled them to break down lactose...

Compare that to 60% of medieval males who had the ability to drink milk as adults, and 70% to 90% of modern Central Europeans who can digest milk as adults...

That’s an extremely fast transformation compared to most evolutionary changes in humans...But does this mean that all Neolithic, Copper Age and Early Bronze Age Central Europeans were lactose intolerant and that this gene suddenly mutated during Late Bronze Age?

I don't think so...Otherwise we wouldn't be finding these milk churns in Chalcolithic Central European Baden Culture...

The ancient European population was not homogenous...It was a patchwork or cultures which coexisted together...Some most likely had the milk tolerance gene and some didn't. And possibly Baden culture people were some of those who were milk tolerant...

Now butter actually contains very low amount of lactose. So little in fact that it can be safely consumed by lactose intolerant people. So the presence of butter churns is not an indicator that the people who used it were lactose tolerant. But how do you arrive to the idea of making butter? You need to be using milk for a long time to eventually realize that shaking milk will produce butter...I think that only lactose tolerant people who drank and stored raw milk for later consumption, for a very long time, would have been able to invent (discover) butter...So I think that the presence of butter churns is in effect an indication that the people who used these churns were very likely lactose tolerant...I wonder if any genetic testing was done on remains found in the Baden culture cemeteries where these butter churns were found...

Anyway, once the lactose tolerance mutation happened in one population, it then spread through inter marrying to other neighboring populations...

Now interestingly, Baden culture people were predominantly I2a (Old European Hunter Gatherer turned Neolithic Megalithic builders) and G2a (Neolithic farmers) genes...

I know that milk tolerance genes are not directly linked with Y haplogroup, but is it possible that that the milk tolerance mutation, once it appeared, had for a long time spread within a certain family (clan, tribe) genetically linked population?

I wonder if we have data which can tells us which Y haplogroup did the lactose tolerant Tollense warriors belong to? That would be an interesting thing to check...

There is another type of vessel associated with milk processing: cheese strainers used for separating milk curds from whey during cheese production. 

Here is a ceramic cheese strainer from Israel, from the same culture that produced the ceramic barrel shaped milk churns. 

These Baden Culture hat shaped perforated ceramic vessels were interpreted as cheese strainers 

So both Gashulians and Baden people made both butter and cheese. Now cheese is not as low on lactose as butter. Particularly fresh young cheese, which contains one fourth of the the amount of lactose found in fresh milk. As cheese ages, this lactose breaks down, so aged cheese is basically lactose free. But again, people who made cheese had to be the same people who used milk for long enough time to be able to arrive to cheese...I also somehow doubt that our Neolithic ancestors were aging their cheeses...So whoever was making and consuming cheese was definitely lactose tolerant... 

By the way, Baden culture was not the only or the earliest European culture which made cheese...

Analyses carried out on sieve vessels or strainers from Linear pottery settlements on the River Vistula in Poland (5,400/5,300BC) yielded food residues from the processing of dairy products. 

Evidence pointing to highly probable cheese-making on sieve vessels from the Linear Pottery and to the extensive use and processing of milk on beakers from the Funnel Beaker period was found at Kopydłowo (Poland)...Strainers from the region of Kuyawa, Poland. 

Both Linear Pottery and  Funnel Beaker cultures are from Central Europe. Men from both cultures carried G2a and I2a genes...

Interestingly, Baden culture developed from Lengyel culture, which developed from Linear Pottery culture...All these cultures lived on the same territory in Central Europe, and males from all these cultures had G2a and I2a genes......Hmmm...One happy lactose tolerant family??? Not convinced?

Here are two cheese strainers from Central European Sopot culture. Again these guys were G2a and I2a

Some people might say: how do we know that these are cheese strainers? Well because people continued using the same type of cheese strainers until today. If it works...

Kizil-Koba culture pottery, 9th - 6th century BC, Crimea. Probable cheese curd strainer bottom right

Roman cheese strainer with a single handle

Medieval cheese making, using ceramic cheese strainer

These are ceramic ones still used today in France. Like this one

Here is lactose tolerance distribution map. See how the maximum is in North Western Europe...

I originally thought that this is somehow linked with R1b people because this is the distribution of the R1b genes across the the world...

But maybe they were just the ones who finally spread it, once they acquired it through mixing with Central European I2a??? G2a??? Neolithic population...Here is a distribution of I2 genes in the world...

I would actually bet on hunter gatherers as being the source of lactose tolerance mutation. It is possible that it developed from the consumption of the "original cheese", the stomach and intestine content of the suckling wild baby sheep and goats.  

I wrote about this in my article "Best bits"...

Now interestingly, one very interesting Mesolithic hunter gatherer culture, Lepenski Vir culture, which existed in Central Europe (Serbia, Romania) between 9000 and 6000 BC, was a mix between R1b and I2a people... 

Did lactose tolerance gene develop here? 

We know that R1b people from the Lepenski Vir culture somehow ended up in Green Sahara, before it turned into desert...I talked about this in my article "The sun over pyramid"...Possibly via Levant?

When R1b guys left Balkans for North Africa, their I2a mates mixed with incoming Neolithic G2a farmers. The G2a Neolithic farmers brought into the mix domesticated cattle, sheep, goats...Did the I2a Hunter Gatherers bring into the mix lactose tolerance gene? 

Whatever happened, the resit is prehistory of butter and cheese production in Europe... 

But what about the Gashulian Levantine butter and cheese makers? What is the oldest evidence for the butter churns and cheese strainers in Levant? Was any genetic testing done to determine if they were lactose tolerant? 

Remember that it was Iranian immigrants into Levant (and most likely Egypt) during 5th and 4th millennium BC who created Gashulian culture. I wrote about it in my article "Nahal Mishmar hoard"...

What is the oldest evidence for milk processing in Iran? Is it older than Gashulian culture? Did these Iranian immigrants bring the lactose tolerance gene with them? Or did they mix with the Levantine locals who were already lactose tolerant? And if so who were these locals and how did they acquire lactose tolerance? Through European immigrants? The R1b guys traveling to the Green Sahara maybe???

Sources:

1. "Spool-shaped clay artefact": an unknown object-type of the boleráz/baden cultures

2. Lochner M., Thunau am Kamp – eine befestigte Höhensiedlung der Urnenfelderkultur und der außergewöhnliche Fund eines Tonfässchens

3. Dairy Queen: Churns and Milk Products in the Aegean Bronze Age

4. The Gilat woman, Female Iconography, Chalcolithic Cult, and the End of Southern Levantine Prehistory

5. Earliest evidence for cheese making in the sixth millennium BC in northern Europe

6. K otázke mladého eneolitu na juhozápadnom Slovensku / The question Early Eneolithic in southwestern Slovakia

7. Darovi zemlje - neolitik između Save, Drave i Dunava/Gifts of the Earth - The Neolithic between the Sava, Drava and Danube

Baden culture grain maiden

This is a very, very interesting ceramic vessel made by people of the Copper Metalworking and Grain Farming "Baden culture" which flourished in Central and Southeast Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, Romania, Austria), c 3600–2800 BC...

The vessel body is shaped like a young female body with bare breasts. And the vessel handles are shaped like growing sheaves of grain...The first time I saw this vessel, I stared at it for good 10 mins trying to figure out what it reminded me of...

I eventually gave up and dismissed it as a case of deja vu. That was few years ago, and I almost forgot about this artefact. And then, the other day, I was finishing my post about the Abduction of Persephone. I was looking at this, the last image in the article and suddenly...

This is the Roman, Augustan period "bas relief of Ceres (Demeter) or Proserpine (Persephone) rising from the ground with sheaves of wheat and poppies"...Persephone has come back from "The Underworld". She is Demeter now, goddess of grain, bringer of wealth...

So is the neolithic Baden culture pot depicting the same mythological scene?

Now remember the European tradition about the "Sprit of grain"? Which is preserved every year in "The last sheaf" from which a "Corn dolly" is made, in order to preserve this spirit from harvest to sowing?

I talked about this in my post "Corn dolly"...Who is this "Spirit of grain"? Is this Persephone again? Well the corn dolly is made in a shape of a woman. Her skirt is made from ears of wheat, which contain seeds...The seeds from the corn dolly's skirt are the first seeds sown during next sowing...The corn dolly is killed and buried only to be reborn, sprout and grow into new wheat...

What is interesting is that according to archaeologist, the agriculture practiced by the first European farmers was based around spring sown grains...I talked about this in my post "To kill a witch"...

In which case Persephone, the spirit of grain, would have gone to "The Underworld" (grain sown) beginning of February (beginning of spring), and would have came out of "The Underworld" (grain sprouting) end of February, beginning of March...

This also means that the seeds are sown at the exact moment when the Old Hag, Winter Earth dies and the Young Maiden, Spring Earth is born...

In which case, originally, during the time of the first farmers in Continental Europe, Spirit of Grain and Spirit of Spring were one and the same...Which is exactly what the Greeks claimed...

Is this how old the legend of Persephone is? 

Possibly...

But wait, wait....What about all the references to autumn in the depiction of the Persephone's abduction from the Homeric hymn to Demeter? I mean you wrote the whole article about it "Abduction of Persephone". Was that all rubbish? (I can hear you say)

Well...As I said in that article, I believe that that version of the story with the end of autumn beginning of winter references originated in Crete...And in Crete, the climate is very similar to the climate in the Fertile Crescent, where the agriculture was invented...There the sowing was done after the first rains, at the end of autumn beginning of winter...So it is possible that the original version of the story is the one where Persephone goes to the underworld at the end of autumn beginning of winter...And then that story was brought to Crete, where because the climate was very similar to the one in Fertile Crescent  the story was preserved unchanged. The story was also brought to the Balkans, where the first farmers had to learn how to grow grain in continental European climate...And there, because of that, the story was changed to fit the new climate...

But also, as I said in my post "Abduction of Persephone", maybe her time spent underground represents winter in Europe, the infertile, dead time of the year, and not the time it takes grain to sprout after sowing...

Anyway, it is an interesting thing to think about...

First toast

The Baden culture, c. 3600–2800 BC, a Chalcolithic culture from Central and Southeast Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, Romania, Austria), could be the culture which started the production and ritual drinking of alcohol in Continental Europe...

At least this is what Miloš Spasić from Belgrade City Museum claims in his article "The first toast: the story of Baden culture cups from Belgrade City Museum"

He bases his argument on the fact that Baden culture archaeological sites are the first sites where we find sets of drinking cups, all made identically, found together with pitchers...

His explanation is that these were alcohol drinking sets used for communal feast ...

The making and communal consumption of alcohol is just one of the things Baden culture is credited with. The other are the initial use of dairy products, domestication of the horse, introduction of animal-drawn carts, various innovations grain agriculture and textile production.

That making and consumption of alcohol was a complete cultural shift can be seen from this map of Eneolithic sites in Belgrade area. Vinca culture, technically advanced civilisation in every respect, no drinking cups. Baden culture, equally advanced, drinking cups everywhere...

The mystery is what alcohol was made and consumed by the Baden people?

Wine? Not likely due to Central European climate. Wild grapes grow much better in hotter areas further down south and east...But still a possibility, and one that the author of this article prefers...

Beer? We know that Baden people were grain farmers. So it is very likely that they did make beer. The author of this article discounts this as "the primitive beer is drank through straws from pitchers and not from cups"...Well not necessarily...You can drink it from cups too...

This is boza, a primitive malt drink (ale) made by fermenting various wheat, millet or barley. It is not filtered which is why it has a thick consistency. It has a low alcohol content (around 1%), and a slightly acidic sweet flavour. And as you can see it is drank from cups and glasses... 

For those interested in primitive beer (ale) making, here is an article I wrote few years ago...

Another possibility is Kumis, a fermented dairy product traditionally made from mare's milk with between 0.7 and 2.5% alcohol...If Baden people domesticated horses and made dairy products, they could have also stumbled across Kumis while fermenting mare milk? This is kumis drinking set from Kazakhstan. Looks familiar? 

So what was the drink of choice at Baden culture parties?

Well you know what they say: it's not what you're drinking it's who you drink it with...