Researchers report evidence of the diet of ancient eastern African herders. Lactase persistence (LP), the ability to digest milk into adulthood, facilitates the milk-based, high-protein, low-calorie diet that eastern African herding communities have historically relied on. Multiple genetic bases for LP in contemporary eastern African populations are known, but the food consumption patterns of early eastern African herders and the context in which LP evolved remain poorly understood. Katherine Grillo and colleagues analyzed lipid residues from 125 ceramic vessels from four archaeological sites in Kenya and Tanzania dated to the Pastoral Neolithic, approximately 5,000-1,200 years ago. The carbon isotope compositions of fatty acids from these residues indicated the presence of milk from ruminant animals in some of the samples, whereas other samples were consistent with adipose tissue or mixtures of milk and adipose tissue. The majority of samples from the two later sites came from ruminant adipose tissue, but samples from milk were present as well. Samples from one of the later sites also contained lipid distributions that likely originated from plants, suggesting that the vessels containing the residues were used for plant processing. The results provide the earliest direct evidence for milk, meat, and plant consumption by eastern African pastoralist societies and shed light on the distinctive evolution of LP in the region, according to the authors.
Article #19-20309: "Molecular and isotopic evidence for milk, meat, and plants in prehistoric eastern African herder food systems," by Katherine M. Grillo et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: Katherine M. Grillo, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL; tel: 757-710-3022; e-mail: kgrillo@ufl.edu
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences