1. Organic Geochemistry Unit, Bristol Biogeochemistry Research Centre, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Cantock's Close, Bristol BS8 1TS, UK
2. English Heritage, 1 Waterhouse Square, 138–142 Holborn, London EC1N 2ST, UK
3. Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield
4. Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, 6 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3QJ, UK
5. Department of Archaeology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece
6. Prehistory Department, Istanbul University, Istanbul 34134, Turkey
7. Archaeology Department, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi, Çanakkale 17020, Turkey
8. Netherlands National Museum of Antiquities and Leiden University, PO Box 1114, 2301 EC Leiden, The Netherlands
9. School of History and Archaeology, Humanities Building, University of Cardiff, Colum Drive, Cardiff CF10 3EU, UK
10. Romanian National Museum of History, Calea Vitoriei, nr. 12, Sect. 3, cod potal 030026, Bucureti, Romania
11. School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK
12. Institute of Archaeology, University College, London, 31–34 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PY, UK
13. Archaeology Center, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
14. Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905, Israel
15. Department of Anthropology, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093-0532, USA
16. Deceased.

Correspondence to: Richard P. Evershed¹ Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to R.P.E. (Email: r.p.evershed@bristol.ac.uk).

Abstract

The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium bc^{1, 2, 3}. Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals—that is, traction and wool—the first clear evidence for these appears much later, from the late fifth and fourth millennia bc^{4, 5}. Hence, the timing and region in which milking was first practised remain unknown. Organic residues preserved in archaeological pottery^{6, 7} have provided direct evidence for the use of milk in the fourth millennium in Britain^{7, 8, 9}, and in the sixth millennium in eastern Europe¹⁰, based on the ¹³C values of the major fatty acids of milk fat^{6, 7}. Here we apply this approach to more than 2,200 pottery vessels from sites in the Near East and southeastern Europe dating from the fifth to the seventh millennia bc. We show that milk was in use by the seventh millennium; this is the earliest direct evidence to date. Milking was particularly important in northwestern Anatolia, pointing to regional differences linked with conditions more favourable to cattle compared to other regions, where sheep and goats were relatively common and milk use less important. The latter is supported by correlations between the fat type and animal bone evidence.