Lactose tolerance spread throughout Europe in only a few thousand years

EurekAlert! ^ | September 3, 2020 | Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz

[SunkenCiv]

The human ability to digest the milk sugar lactose after infancy spread throughout Central Europe in only a few thousand years. This is the conclusion reached by an international research team led by Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). The researchers analyzed genetic material from the bones of individuals who had fallen in a conflict around 1200 B.C. on the banks of the Tollense, a river in the present-day German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania... found that only around one in eight of the assumed warriors had a gene variant that enabled them to break down the lactose in milk. "Of the present-day population living in this same area, around 90 percent have this lactase persistence," explained population geneticist Professor Joachim Burger of JGU, the lead author of the study. "This is a huge difference when you consider that there cannot be many more than 120 human generations between then and today." Aside from lactase persistence and a few other genetic variants, the genomes of the Tollense people are similar to that of today's inhabitants of northern Germany and the Baltic Sea region....

Back in 2007, Burger and his team established that almost none of the first sedentary farmers in Europe were lactase-persistent. "It is astonishing that at the time of the battle at the Tollense, more than 4,000 years after the introduction of agriculture in Europe, lactase persistence in adults was still so rare... With milk being a high-energy, relatively uncontamined drink, its ingestion may have provided greater chances of survival during food shortages or when supplies of drinking water were contaminated. Particularly during early childhood, in the years shortly after weaning, this factor often may have been decisive amongst prehistoric populations," Burger concluded.

[SunkenCiv]

© Stefan Sauer/Tollense Valley Project

[SunkenCiv]

• Lost in Combat? [3000 years ago] [2019]
• For Peaceable Humans, Don't Look to Prehistory [2016]
• Unexpected and Gruesome Battle of 1250 BC Involved 4,000 Men from Across Northern Europe [2016]
• Early Bronze Age battle site found on German river bank [2011]
• "Early Bronze Age battle site found on German river bank" [2011]
• Archaeologists find bones from prehistoric war in Germany [2008]

[ProtectOurFreedom]

...[cow milk] ingestion may have provided greater chances of survival during food shortages or when supplies of drinking water were contaminated.

It's interesting that cows could drink contaminated water and convert it to pure milk that humans could drink. Why didn't the cows get sick on the same contaminated water that would have sickened humans?

[Governor Dinwiddie]

According to this study, the area where lactose tolerance is highest is among northwestern Europe: Ireland, Scotland, and Scandinavia.
 

[SunkenCiv]

They did get sick, they just didn't whine about how Trump doesn't wear a mask.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

LOL...good retort!

[SunkenCiv]

• Turf Cutters Unearth Prehistoric Lump Of Bog Butter [Ireland][06/12/2016]
• Ancient, still-edible chunk of butter unearthed in Irish bog [06/14/2016]
• Archaeologists Find Evidence of Incest Among Irelands Early Elite at Newgrange Passage Tomb [06/22/2020]

[SunkenCiv]

I hope I didn't seem, uh, Bossy.

[SunkenCiv]

Did you know 51 headless vikings were found in Dorset?

No, but if you hum a few bars...

• 51 Headless Vikings Found in English Execution Pit? [07/28/2009]

[Larry Lucido]

"I'm lactose intolerant. I have no patience for lactose, and I won't stand for it."

[SaveFerris]

I was expecting a Seinfeld...

[SunkenCiv]

• Whoops. New Viking DNA research yields unexpected information about who they were

[nickcarraway]

Another example of white privilege?

[SunkenCiv]

Another example of much greater tolerance among people of European descent.

[SunkenCiv]

Non-Fat Yogurt Makes You Fat - Seinfeld

[skr]

Four stomachs to process what they ingest might have something to do with it. Plus, some bacteria affect humans but not animals and vice versa.

[SunkenCiv]

The lactose, lactosetolerance, lactoseintolerance keywords, chrono:

• Is Being Gluten-Intolerant an American Problem? [2019]
• Millions of Americans Are Wrong About Having a Food Allergy, Study Suggests [2019]
• Why White Supremacists Are Chugging Milk (and Why Geneticists Are Alarmed) [2018]
• Malnourished baby dies after health-conscious parents fed him strict diet [2017]
• 'Clean food' is a dangerous fad [2015]
• Driver Suffered "Coughing Attack" Before Fatal Big Rig Crash Off Southern CA Freeway [2015]
• Ancient North Africans got milk: Herders began dairying around 7,000 years ago [2012]
• Elma, Wash., dairy princess is lactose intolerant [2011]
• New study finds milk drinkers may have a healthy weight advantage [2010]
• Vitamin D Deficiency Linked to Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome in Studies [2010]
• Milk: 2 glasses a day tones muscles, keeps the fat away in women, study shows (after weight-lifting) [2010]
• Avoiding dairy due to lactose intolerance is unnecessary in most cases [2010]
• EU funds study of the origins of milk consumption in Europe [2008]
• Milk Makes You Sick? Let's Sue Somebody! [2005]
• Lactose intolerance linked to ancestral environment [Darwinian medicine] [2005]
• Why Administration Mod in 2004? [2003]
• ZOT! Aliens [2003]
• It's Not So Funny Any More [2003]
• Why would anyone be a Democrat? [2003]
• Prehistoric Britons' Taste For Milk [2003]
• Milk protest turns sour [PETA gets pelted!] [2002]

[alexander_busek]

It's interesting that cows could drink contaminated water and convert it to pure milk that humans could drink. Why didn't the cows get sick on the same contaminated water that would have sickened humans?

Your question indicates fallacious reasoning.

There are several possibilities:

1. Some of the cows undoubtedly did get sick from the contaminated water. But a caring father would nevertheless prefer giving his recently-weaned, still somewhat sickly infant child cow's milk rather than contaminated water.

2. A robust, healthy cow is more resistant to contaminated water than an aged grandfather. Etc.

Regards,

[Rockingham]

My guess is that persistence lactose tolerance greatly reduced mortality in the latter stages of childhood.

[FLT-bird]

A lot of animals have much stronger immunity to pathogens in water that would make humans sick. My dog can drink from streams/rivers when we go hiking and not get sick. I can’t.