Obsessed with butter

Buttering toast, the Irish way...

In 2015 an article entitled "Milking the megafauna: Using organic residue analysis to understand early farming practice" was published in the Journal of Environmental Archaeology by Jessica Smyth and Richard P. Evershed... 

The authors of the paper analysed residues found in nearly 500 cooking pots from Neolithic Ireland dated to the period 4,000 to 2,500 BC...

Ninety per cent of the residues tested for fat origin were found to be dairy fats, with ten per cent found to be meat fats (beef or mutton) or a mixture of milk and meat...

Dr Smyth, who led the study, said: "We know from previous research that dairying was an important part of many early farming economies, but what was a big surprise was the prevalence of dairy residues in Irish pots.  It looks to have been a very important food source".

Dr Smyth also said: "We know that settlements were small in the Irish Neolithic, usually one or two houses, so it’s likely that early farming groups had just one or two animals supporting the household with their products, which were perhaps part of a wider community herd"...

"Such results are even more significant given the fact that domesticated animals such as cattle, sheep and goats had to be physically shipped to Ireland as part of the process, as these animals were not native to the island"...

It just so happened that when this paper got published, I read an article in Irish Times about a paper written by UCD professor of archaeology Liam Downey and environmental archaeologist Dr Ingelise Stuijts about the history of "banbidh" (Irish for white foods) in Ireland...

They collated and analysed the data about food consumed in Ireland from the time of the earliest documentary sources up to the late 17th century...

They concluded that despite "extraordinarily high number of cattle in Ireland and an abundance of fish in the Irish waters, ordinary Irish people ate very little beef or fish".

Research had found that people lived primarily on dairy products. The Irish favourite food was butter. But there was also drinking milk, and buttermilk, and fresh curds, and old curds, and something called “real curds,” and whey mixed with water to make a refreshing sour drink...

In 1690, one British visitor to Ireland noted that the natives ate and drank milk "above twenty several sorts of ways and what is strangest for the most part love it best when sourest". 

He was referring to bainne clabair (thick milk), something between old milk and sour cream.

In the 12th c. vision of MacConglinne, he traveled to "the Land of Food" where he saw a delicious drink made up of "very thick milk, of milk not too thick, of milk of long thickness, of milk of medium thickness, of yellow bubbling milk, the swallowing of which needs chewing"...

Medieval British military advisors proposed that the best way to suppress Irish rebellions "would be just to kill all the cows because the majority of the population lived all summer on their cows’ milk"...

The second most important food were cereal products. The ordinary Irish people "ate tons of bread and porridge".

As for meet, it seems that "beef was most commonly consumed by the higher ranks of society, while pork was eaten by the common people..."

It is not surprising then that people so obsessed with butter, cheese and milk valued cattle above all else, to the point of being completely obsessed with them...

Fergus Kelly in his books "A Guide to Early Irish Law" and "Early Irish Farming" talks about cattle as currency in the early medieval Ireland. He gives the list of types of cattle used for payment and their relative value...

The basic unit was a milking cow, usually with her calf.  Different ancient texts give different exchange rates for different types, but they were all given as a fraction of the value of the milking cow. Example:

In-calf cow = two-thirds of a milking cow

Three-year-old heifer = half of milking cow

Two-year-old heifer = one third of milking cow

Yearling heifer = one quarter of milking cow

Yearling bullock = one eighth of milking cow

In one law text, there is an equal value given for a milking cow, a cumal (female slave), an ounce of silver and 2 sét (jewels)...

Cattle was so valued by the Irish, that Cattle raiding and plundering was an intrinsic part of the Old Irish (Scotish) way of life. To the extent that the most important old Irish epic is called Táin Bó Cúailnge which means "the driving-off , stealing, of cows of Cooley".

This epic which is more commonly known as "The cattle raid of Cooley" is a masterpiece of the early Irish literature. And as its name tells us it is a story about a cattle raid. A cattle raid ordered by the Queen Medb of Connacht who wanted to steal the champion bull of Ulster.

This lead to a bloody war between Ulster and Connacht which caused terrible devastation and many casualties on both sides. The most famous of these casualties was the Ulster hero Cú Chulainn, who died defending Ulster from the Connacht forces...

Táin Bó Cúailnge is traditionally set in the 1st century AD in an essentially pre-Christian "age of heroes". I think that the much better name for this period of the Irish history is the "age of armed shepherds"...

Shepherds had to be armed and skilled in battle if they wanted to protect their cattle from other armed shepherd who wanted to steal it. Eventually this must have lead to a formation of a warrior shepherd caste...

That this is probably what happened during the Irish Iron age can be seen from the emergence of the so called "cattle lords" or "cow lords" or "bóaire" in Irish. Bóaire was a freeman ranked below the noble grades but above the unfree...

He would own a share of land, which he inherited from members of his kin and which he could not sell without his kin's approval. He would normally have cattle given to him by a lord (the head of his clan) in exchange for entering into a clientship relationship...

The today Irish are still equally obsessed with milk and milk products...Especially butter...

Anyway, while I was reading all this, one question popped into my mind: is there anything special about the Irish, genetically, that makes them love milk so much?

After all, milk tolerance is not that common...Here is today's lactose tolerance distribution map. See how the maximum is in North Western Europe...Look how dark Ireland is...

So then I looked at the genetic maps and I noticed a strange correlation between R1b haplogroup distribution and the lactose tolerance distribution...I mean, look at Ireland...It's black...So I thought that these two things could be linked...

But then, while researching butter churns and cheese strains from Neolithic and Chalcholitic Central Europe, I came across the data that seems to point to the link between I2a and G2a haplogroups and the earliest cattle herding and milk processing cultures. I talked about this in my post "Milk, butter, cheese"...

Neolithic butter churn

Neolithic cheese strainer

I finished my above article still unsure whether it was I2a or R1b people who were the original milkmen...Well...Today I remembered this article about milk residues in Neolithic Irish cooking vessels...

All the vessels date to 4000-2500BC...Very very important...Why is this important? Because according to the latest genetic data, R1b people most likely didn't arrive to Ireland until mid 3rd millennium BC...

So who were the milking cow obsessed Neolithic Irish...I2a...Neolithic megalith builders...And milk drinkers...So is it possible that this is another indicator that the original lactose tolerance genes developed among the I2a people?

Did the Bronze, Iron, Medieval and Modern age R1b Irish get their love of milk and all things milky (and get the ability to process lactose) through mixing with the Neolithic I2a Irish? I think so...

Distribution of I2a and I2b haplogroups in Europe...

Group portrait

Group portrait!!! Smile!!! Zoomorphic figurines, Copper Age Central European Baden culture...

These guys were farmers who grew wheat and millet, but they also heavily relied on keeping farm animals, like pigs, sheep, goats, horses and cattle...

One curious thing we find in Baden culture are animal "graves" with whole cattle, horses, sheep, goats, pigs and dogs. As well as pits with partial animal remains, and whole and parts of animals buried together with humans. 

You can read more about it in the paper "Transcendent phenomena in the Late Copper Age Boleráz/ Baden settlement uncovered at Balatonőszöd- Temetői dűlő: human and animal depositions"

The authors of the papers interpret these animal burials like this: 

"...the celestial deities were invited to a joint feast during the offering, and certain parts of the sacrificed animal were offered to them...Celestial deities are the lords of the courses of stars and being the guardians of the fixed laws that rule this sphere, they were also the lords of justice, customs and ethics in the earthly world...Their predominance over the earthly deities evolved in societies where “knightly culture” flourished, meaning that charismatic social/military/religious leaders played a major role and a weaponry and social classes matching this role developed...The situation was different with the chthonic deities. They could not be invited to a joint feast, so the entire animal had to be offered to them...Accordingly, the complete skeletons uncovered at a site could have been offered to the chthonic deities, the partial ones to the celestial deities..."

My comment: That's kind of random??? Why???

"...The sacrificial pits dug into the earth are associated with the cult of chthonic deities and consequently the fertility cult and the cult of the dead: they are the lords of wealth, abundance and fate in the otherworld..."

My comment: this belief still exists among Slavs...

"...By means of offering sacrifices, these pits create a connection to the earthly and chthonic deities, who willingly accept the offering placed in the pits. In certain cases the pit itself is a chthonic altar..."

But then the authors backtrack on Celestial-Chthonic thingy:

"...As pits are the most common phenomena in a prehistoric settlement excavation...the sacrifices were always uncovered in pits. This, however, does not mean that all of them were offered to the chthonic deities! After all: what feature type could be associated in a prehistoric settlement with offering types intended for the celestial deities if not a pit?..."

My comment: Eeee exactly...

The authors then continue with this:

"...In the following we try to categorize in a simple and combined way the above described ritual rules of diverse origins as it can be adapted to the Boleráz / Baden cultures...Female animal skeletons could be funeral sacrifices relating to female fertility symbols in fertility rites...Mature male animals could be votive offerings, the symbols of male power in fertility ceremonies, and appeasing offerings to the chthonic deities...Immature skeletons could be firstling offerings, the young animals could be offered to prominent heroes and ancestors...The large communal sacrifices could be peace offerings..."

My comment: Based on what exactly???

They finish with: 

"...An interpretation according to the above stated ritual rules almost frighteningly simplifies the animal burials, which seem extremely complex and variegated at first glance..."

My comment: Except this is all just a complete speculation, based on what???

The paper authors also try to address placing of whole animals in human graves:

"...There could be various reasons why animal skeletons were placed beside human corpses...The choice of the species of the “accompanying animal” could be connected with animal species that possessed death “aspects” in the cults of the dead (like dogs and horses)..." 

My comment: how do we know that these animals had "death aspect"? And what is "death aspect"???

"...It is also possible that a former pet was placed beside the dead or an animal that marked something for the community or the individual (totem animal) or one that reflected the person’s social status: a symbol of power, status or occupation...Still, one circumstance remains inexplicable: no religious historical work mentions an offering type in which pregnant women and female animals (sheep) or foetuses (newborn babies, calves, lambs, piglets) were used, a phenomena, which was observed in Baden burials..."

So confusing...

There is actually one simple explanation for all of this. I believe these whole animals buried with humans or in graves next to human graves, were not sacrifices. These animals were killed and buried to accompany their deceased owners to the otherworld...

Remember: As above, so below...How old is this belief? The dead will awake in the otherworld exactly as they were buried. Which is why all these ancient cultures buried their dead with their chariots, weapons, tools, jewelry, food, drink...And their cattle, sheep, goats, dogs...

This also explains why pregnant women and animals and newborn animals and children were "sacrificed" (killed and sent to the otherworld to accompany a deceased man so he can have a ready made family when he wakes in the otherworld)...

This old belief, is the reason we still dress our dead "in their best" and put makeup on them "to make them look their best"...When they enter eternity...

What is very interesting is that cattle and other domestic animal burials were during Copper Age period found all in Central Europe, in the connected territories of Baden (I2a, G2a), Funnel-Beaker (I2a, G2a), Globular Amphorae (I2a, G2a) and Corded Ware (R1a, I2a) cultures...

Do you think that maybe this belief system was in some way linked to a particular tribe connected through paternal lineage... 🙂 Just an idea...

BTW, these cattle, sheep and goat herders were also butter and cheese makers. Just like their other Central European I2a and G2a cousins...

I talked about the early dairy farmers in my post "Milk butter cheese"...

Baby (milk) horns

Among the ceramic finds from the cemetery of the Bronze Age Encrusted Pottery culture at Bonyhád in Hungary, archaeologists have found many ceramic "drinking horn" vessels, like this one, in the graves of infants...

This may suggest that the drinking horns functioned as special items used for the nutrition of children, i.e. like contemporary baby-bottles, or possibly they were related to customs related to birth and new life...

The location of Bonyhád inside of the Encrusted Pottery Culture territory in the Carpathian Basin. 

From "The chronology and meaning of the Transdanubian encrusted pottery decoration"

What did the kids doing from these horns? Milk? Quite possibly, considering that Central Europe was where milk tolerance seem to have developed, and where we find Copper age and Bronze Age ceramic butter churns and Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age cheese strainers...I talked about this in my post "Milk Butter Cheese"... 

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