ArticleNature communications2021
Ancient proteins provide evidence of dairy consumption in eastern Africa.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 78 citations in OpenAlex.
- Bone health: biology and nutrition.Current opinion in clinical nutrition and metabolic care · 2024Pooled it
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- Paleo-proteomic analysis of Iron Age dental calculus provides direct evidence of Scythian reliance on ruminant dairy.PloS one · 2026Article
- The Demodifier: A tool for screening modification-induced alternate peptide taxonomy in palaeoproteomics.PloS one · 2026Article
- Mediterranean diet and Cantonese cuisine for human health: report from a Sino-Italian bilateral meeting.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2025Review
- Not by Selection Alone: Expanding the Scope of Gene-Culture Coevolution.Evolutionary anthropology · 2025Review
- Bone Adhered Sediments as a Source of Target and Environmental DNA and Proteins.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Unveiling the Xianbei cavalry: a multidisciplinary approach to restore and analyse the first horse-cavalry armour set in China.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Quantity and Quality of Dairy Product Intake and Their Relationship with Body Composition in Children and Adolescents from Mexico City.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Reconstructing medieval diets through the integration of stable isotope and proteomic analyses from two European burial sites.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- A dataset of scientific dates from archaeological sites in eastern Africa spanning 5000 BCE to 1800 CE.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Saturated fat in an evolutionary context.Lipids in health and disease · 2025Review
- An unclean slate, discrepancies between food input and recovered protein signal from experimental foodcrusts.PloS one · 2025Article
- Nutrition and Osteoporosis Prevention.Current osteoporosis reports · 2024Review
- The impact of cooking and burial on proteins: a characterisation of experimental foodcrusts and ceramics.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Role of fermented dairy products in the health benefits of a mediterranean diet.Aging clinical and experimental research · 2024Review
- Extraction Protocol for Parallel Analysis of Proteins and DNA from Ancient Teeth and Dental Calculus.Journal of proteome research · 2023Article
- Curated cauldrons: Preserved proteins from early copper-alloy vessels illuminate feasting practices in the Caucasian steppe.iScience · 2023Article
- A one health framework to advance food safety and security: An on-farm case study in the Rwandan dairy sector.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
28 authors at 8 institutions in 10 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Consuming the milk of other species is a unique adaptation of Homo sapiens, with implications for health, birth spacing and evolution. Key questions nonetheless remain regarding the origins of dairying and its relationship to the genetically-determined ability to drink milk into adulthood through lactase persistence (LP). As a major centre of LP diversity, Africa is of significant interest to the evolution of dairying. Here we report proteomic evidence for milk consumption in ancient Africa. Using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) we identify dairy proteins in human dental calculus from northeastern Africa, directly demonstrating milk consumption at least six millennia ago. Our findings indicate that pastoralist groups were drinking milk as soon as herding spread into eastern Africa, at a time when the genetic adaptation for milk digestion was absent or rare. Our study links LP status in specific ancient individuals with direct evidence for their consumption of dairy products.
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