Egypt
- Domesticating Cattle Not As Easy As Once Thought
Past Horizons A new genetic study has revealed that all Taurine cattle are descended from as few as 80 animals that were domesticated from wild ox in the Near East. An international team of scientists from the CNRS and National Museum of...
- Online Article: Tracking East African Cattle Herders From Prehistory To The Present
Expedition Magazine In PDF format. Tracking East African Cattle Herders from Prehistory to the Present By Kathleen Ryan, Photography by Jennifer Chiappardi Expedition Volume 51, Number 3 Winter 2009 Cattle herding, as well as dairying, has long been a...
- News: Stone Age Humans Crossed Sahara In The Rain
New Scientist (Jeff Hecht) Wet spells in the Sahara may have opened the door for early human migration. According to new evidence, water-dependent trees and shrubs grew there between 120,000 and 45,000 years ago. This suggests that changes in the weather...
- Early Use And Spread Of Domesticated Animals
It's a very slow news day today, so here are a couple of off-topic items to keep you going: Just when did the cows come home? The Jerusalem Post Until now, researchers thought that the processing, storage and use of domesticated cow, sheep and goats'...
- Cattle Nomads In The Prehistoric Sahara
Some sadly brief pieces about the excellent work carried out by Dr Kropelin and his colleagues in the eastern Sahara, including the Gilf Kebir. There's a bit more on the above page, but not much. http://tinyurl.com/el7et (latimes.com) "A 3,200-year...
Egypt
Evidence of prehistoric dairy production found in the Sahara
Discovery News (Emily Sohn)
More than 7,000 years ago, prehistoric people in the African Sahara were making dairy products, such as butter, yogurt and cheese.
The discovery, based on the identification of dairy fats on ancient pottery shards found in Libya, is the first to provide a definitive date for early dairy farming in Africa. Adding to findings from Europe and the Middle East, the study points to milk products as a main reason why people in many places may have chosen to give up the hunter-gatherer lifestyle in favor of a more settled existence.
“What we’re really beginning to know is that cattle were incredibly significant to early peoples,” said Julie Dunne, an archaeological scientist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. “They gave a remarkably calorific source of food and allowed populations to expand dramatically. Milk and dairying seem to be so significant in human development, remarkably so.”
Plenty of research has documented the domestication of sheep, goats and cattle, as well as the use of dairy products, beginning around 9,000 years ago in parts of modern-day Turkey, 8,000 years ago in eastern Europe and 6,000 years ago in Britain.
In Africa, details have been murkier.
- Domesticating Cattle Not As Easy As Once Thought
Past Horizons A new genetic study has revealed that all Taurine cattle are descended from as few as 80 animals that were domesticated from wild ox in the Near East. An international team of scientists from the CNRS and National Museum of...
- Online Article: Tracking East African Cattle Herders From Prehistory To The Present
Expedition Magazine In PDF format. Tracking East African Cattle Herders from Prehistory to the Present By Kathleen Ryan, Photography by Jennifer Chiappardi Expedition Volume 51, Number 3 Winter 2009 Cattle herding, as well as dairying, has long been a...
- News: Stone Age Humans Crossed Sahara In The Rain
New Scientist (Jeff Hecht) Wet spells in the Sahara may have opened the door for early human migration. According to new evidence, water-dependent trees and shrubs grew there between 120,000 and 45,000 years ago. This suggests that changes in the weather...
- Early Use And Spread Of Domesticated Animals
It's a very slow news day today, so here are a couple of off-topic items to keep you going: Just when did the cows come home? The Jerusalem Post Until now, researchers thought that the processing, storage and use of domesticated cow, sheep and goats'...
- Cattle Nomads In The Prehistoric Sahara
Some sadly brief pieces about the excellent work carried out by Dr Kropelin and his colleagues in the eastern Sahara, including the Gilf Kebir. There's a bit more on the above page, but not much. http://tinyurl.com/el7et (latimes.com) "A 3,200-year...