Objectives

The main objectives of the NeoMilk are:

  • to investigate the origins and quantitative contributions of the major animal products acquired and processed in LBK cooking pottery, via fatty biomarkers and compound-specific stable isotopes of animal fats preserved in food residues;
  • to approach the date, via compound-specific 14C analysis, and location of the origins of dairying based on the detection of milk fats in LBK cooking vessels, to test the hypothesis raised by the most recent genetic studies, which indicate the LBK as the core region for the emergence of the LP gene variant;
  • to test the application of compound-specific deuterium isotopes values of fatty acid to record high resolution regional climatic signals.

Three further hypotheses are be tested within the project:

  • milking was introduced concomitantly with the LBK material culture, as part of its Neolithic package, and practised from the very beginnings of LBK;
  • milking developed in temperate Europe during the LBK, essentially emerging as a new technology in a specific region(s) and at certain times, which then spread more or less continuously and increased in intensity through time, reaching a maximum in the later LBK;
  • milking was not an intensive practice of the management of animals in the LBK, and displayed a discontinuous pattern in time and space.