Der Spiegel: New research has revealed that agriculture came to Europe amid a wave of immigration from the Middle East during the Neolithic period. The newcomers won out over the locals because of their sophisticated culture, mastery of agriculture -- and their miracle food, milk...
At around 5300 BC, everyone in Central Europe was suddenly farming and raising livestock... Within less than 300 years, the sedentary lifestyle had spread to the Paris basin. New excavations in Turkey, as well as genetic analyses of domestic animals and Stone Age skeletons [indicate]:
- At around 7000 BC, a mass migration of farmers began in the Middle East to Europe.
- These ancient farmers brought along domesticated cattle and pigs.
- There was no interbreeding between the intruders and the original population.
The new settlers also had something of a miracle food at their disposal: fresh milk, which, as a result of a genetic mutation, they were soon able to drink in large quantities. The result was that the population of farmers grew and grew...
There are also signs of conflict... The old hunter-gatherers had long been accustomed to hunting and fishing. Their ancestors had entered Europe 46,000 years ago -- early enough to have encountered the Neanderthals... The crossing of the Bosporus did not occur until sometime between 7000 and 6500 BC. The farmers met with little resistance from the hunter-gatherer cultures, whose coastal settlements were being inundated by devastating floods at the time. Melting glaciers had triggered a rise in the sea level of over 100 meters...
With military determination, the advancing pioneers constantly established new settlements. The villages often consisted of three to six windowless longhouses, strictly aligned to the northwest, next to livestock pens and masterfully constructed wells. Their tools, picks and bowls... were almost identical throughout Central Europe, from Ukraine to the Rhine...
The newcomers were industrious and used to working hard in the fields. Clay statues show that the men were already wearing trousers and shaving. The women dyed their hair red and decorated it with snail shells. Both sexes wore caps, and the men also wore triangular hats. By comparison, the... existing inhabitants of the continent wore animal hides and lived in spartan huts. They looked on in bewilderment as the newcomers deforested their hunting grounds, tilled the soil and planted seeds. This... motivated them to resist the intruders...
It is clear, however, that the dairy farmers won out in the end. During their migration, they encountered increasingly lush pastures, a paradise for their cows. An added benefit of migrating farther to the north was that raw milk lasted longer in the cooler climate... Europe became the land of the eternal infant as people began drinking milk their whole lives... Milk played a major part in shaping history.
