Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Archaeology

Detecting milk proteins in ancient pots

Abstract

Deciding whether to farm cattle for milk or beef was just as complex in the past as it is today. Compared with meat production, dairying is a high-input, high-output, high-risk operation indicative of an intensive, sophisticated economy, but this practice is notoriously difficult to demonstrate in the archaeological record1. Here we provide evidence for the presence of milk proteins preserved in prehistoric vessels, which to our knowledge have not been detected before. This finding resolves the controversy that has surrounded dairying on the Scottish Atlantic coast during the Iron Age2,3,4,5 and indicates that farming by the early inhabitants of this harsh, marginal environment was surprisingly well developed.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Amounts of bovine α-casein present in samples of pottery and soil, as determined by duplicate assay using digestion-and-capture immunoassay with a monoclonal antibody raised against this protein.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Halstead, P. Anthropozoologica 27, 3–20 (1998).

    Google Scholar 

  2. McCormick, F. in Life on the Edge: Human Settlement and Marginality (eds Mills, C. M. & Coles, G.) 49–53 (Oxbow, Oxford, 1998).

  3. Gilmour, S. & Cook, M. Antiquity 72, 327–337 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Parker-Pearson, M., Sharples, N. & Mulville, J. Antiquity 70, 57–67 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Parker-Pearson, M., Sharples, N. & Mulville, J. Antiquity 73, 149–152 (1999).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Rottländer, R. C. A. in Proc. 24th Int. Symp. Archaeometry 403–405 (Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, 1986).

  7. Evershed, R. P. World Archaeol. 25, 74–93 (1993).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Dudd, S. N. & Evershed, R. P. Science 282, 1478–1481 (1998).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Evershed, R. P. & Tuross, N. J. Archaeol. Sci. 23, 429–436 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Craig, O. E. & Collins, M. J. J. Immunol. Meth. 236, 89–97 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Tuross, N., Barnes, I. & Potts, R. J. Archaeol. Sci. 23, 289–296 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Oliver Craig.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Craig, O., Mulville, J., Pearson, M. et al. Detecting milk proteins in ancient pots. Nature 408, 312 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35042684

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35042684

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing