Web edition: June 20, 2012 Animal herders living in what was a
grassy part of North Africa’s Sahara Desert around 7,000 years
ago had a taste for cattle milk, or perhaps milk products such
as butter. Researchers have identified a chemical signature of
dairy fats on the inside surfaces of pottery from that time.
Dairy products played a big part in the diets of these ancient
Africans, even though they did not live in farming villages as
the earliest European milk users did, reports a team led by
biogeochemists Julie Dunne and Richard Evershed, both of the
University of Bristol in England. Dairying may have spread from
the Middle East and nearby areas — where farming emerged around
10,000 years ago — to Africa and Europe within a couple thousand
years, the scientists propose in the June 21 Nature. Chemical
evidence shows that cattle milked in the ancient Sahara ate
plants from both cool, wet areas and hot, dry expanses. “Animals
were being moved around the landscape between different
ecosystems containing differ