Ancient North Africans got milk

Herders began dairying around 7,000 years ago

Animal herders living in what was a grassy part of North Africa’s Sahara Desert around 7,000 years ago had a taste for cattle milk, or perhaps milk products such as butter. Researchers have identified a chemical signature of dairy fats on the inside surfaces of pottery from that time.

CATTLE CALL A rock art depiction of domesticated cattle thought to date to between 8,000 and 5,000 years ago comes from a part of the Sahara Desert where chemical evidence now shows that people milked cattle 7,000 years ago.