Milk Drinking Started Around 7,500 Years Ago In Central Europe
Tuesday, September 1, 2009 - 11:21
in Paleontology & Archaeology
The ability to digest the milk sugar lactose first evolved in dairy farming communities in central Europe, not in more northern groups as was previously thought, finds a new study. The genetic change that enabled early Europeans to drink milk without getting sick has been mapped to dairying farmers who lived 7,500 years ago between the central Balkans and central Europe.