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Clay vessels that have been found in Germany could have been used to supplement breast milk and wean children more than 5,000 years ago. They became more common across Bronze and Iron Age Europe and are thought to be some of the first-known baby bottles.
[...]Our results showed that the three vessels contained ruminant animal milk, either from cows, sheep or goat. Their presence in child graves suggests they were used to feed babies animal milk, as a supplementary food during weaning.
This is interesting because animal milk would only have become available as humans changed their lifestyles and settled in farming communities. It's at that time – the dawn of agriculture – that people first domesticated cows, sheep, goats and pigs. This ultimately led to the "Neolithic demographic transition", when the widespread use of animal milk to feed babies or as a supplementary weaning food in some parts of the world improved nutrition, contributing to an increased birth rate. The human population grew significantly as a result, and so did settlement sizes, which eventually became the towns and cities we know today. By holding these ancient baby bottles, we're connected to the first generations of children who grew up in the transition from hunter-gatherer groups to communities based around agriculture.
Apparently, they had been finding these animal-containers at dig sites, but couldn't pin down exactly how they were used. The ones they tested were found in a child grave site. They performed a lipid analysis to figure out the content had been milk.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday September 27 2019, @06:12AM
The location seems to be Bavaria, and while I don't really disagree with you on the rest of this, I'd imagine they could have kept the milk for at least a couple of days without issues. Before we got a refrigerator we kept the milk in the spring, it was probably cooler than most fridges, it felt like ice when you reached in to haul the milk out of it. I don't know for sure there was a nice spring near the remains they found, but it wouldn't be a surprise at all if they picked a spot to settle that had a spring. Handy things, particularly before electricity and running water and all.
"Rather, did like every other farming settlement, and took the flocks out to pasture every morning. (You don't leave your livestock out overnight, the wolves will get 'em.)"
Well pastoralists do often do that, but they also sleep with the herd, and keep dogs. You're right, if this was a mixed settlement that would have been very likely. All back inside the settlement at night.
"I'd bet they also had some form of cheesemaking."
Seems quite possible in light of this: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11698
"I think we've had proper agriculture and permanent settlements a LOT longer than is held by conventional archeology."
Well, when conventional archaeology is done right, it's limited by evidence. The oldest $whatever known today is unlikely to be the oldest $whatever, there might be an older one discovered until tomorrow... but it's still the oldest evidence we have today.
Speculation is fun but you have to go dig to prove anything.
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