Lactase persistance in Eurasia: different departure, same destination : Gene Expression

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I have not seen a history of the spread of cattle-raising in human society. (Such histories exist for the horse, the camel, iron, and the codfish). From what I've seen, the cow was domesticated about 7k BC and the Indo-Europeans became a factor about 4k BC.

A history of the oxcart would also be relevant -- cattle probably were used as draft animals (and meat) before they were used for milk, and oxcarts were a factor in areas without good roads (include frontier America) well into the XIXc.

A history of cow- and bull-worship, and bullfighting, would also be relevant. The oxcart, bullfighting, and bovine religious cults extend outside the Indo-European zone; a friend of mine saw a bullfight in the hills of Indonesia.

Posted by: John Emerson | August 9, 2007 8:25 PM

John,

Indeed it would be fascinating. What struck me when I first went into a Vietnamese restaurant about 18 years ago was that their word for beef was "Bo", which happens to be the exact same word as the Irish Gaelic word for cow "Bo".

The Irish word has a cognate in Latin and Greek of course.

Posted by: pconroy | August 10, 2007 10:08 AM

Not long after horses were domesticated some 6500 years ago, the horse and cattle herding nomads of the Eurasian steppe or parts of it, have long before Genghis Khan or even the Huns (and those behind them, pushing them) occasionally but regularly united sufficiently to conquer or anyway rampage over neighboring or far flung regions of Eurasia.

This process, I think, would involve quite enough allele spreading to do the LP sowing trick, would it not?

Posted by: dougjnn | August 10, 2007 2:18 PM

John-

What I should have said above I suppose is, that I know you know a great deal about the history of the steppe nomads, so what can you tell us about their possibly earliest invading incursions into surrounding and far flung Eurasian societies, with the attendant allele transmission possibilites / likihoods / certainties?

Posted by: dougjnn | August 10, 2007 10:47 PM

When "steppe nomadism" is spoken of it usually refers to the military groups which started invading around 800 BC. It's really a form of military-political organization rather than the fact of horse raising. The prehistory of horse-raising goes back hundreds of years before that, but I'm not uptodate on that.

The Indo-Europeans were not nomads in that sense, and I don't believe they rode horses astride, though they may have used horses for chariots. The probable earliest nomads (Scythians, of Northern Iranian affiliation) were Indo Europeans, but when nomadism moved east from north of the Black Sea, Asiatic peoples (Turks and Mongols) picked it up. There was a tendency for noad peoples to be absorbed or destroyed by civilization and replaced by new nomads from their rear.

The role of the Tokharians (non-Iranian Indo-Europeans) in this is uncertain to me and possibly to anyone. It's a developing story, I think.

Posted by: John Emerson | August 12, 2007 9:07 AM

"I have not seen a history of the spread of cattle-raising in human society. (Such histories exist for the horse, the camel, iron, and the codfish)".

They exist for oxen too:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1472438
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1617209
(among other stuff you can easily search online)

"From what I've seen, the cow was domesticated about 7k BC and the Indo-Europeans became a factor about 4k BC".

You are compressing late prehistory a little bit probably. Add at least 500 years for the first and substract some 500 years for the second maybe. Also consider that Indo-Europeans did not arrive to Scandinavia till c. 2400 BCE and to Britain till around 300 BCE. Finally consider please that people can also drink sheep and goat milk (and later also from mare and camel - but that's less relevant for what is discussed here).

"Not long after horses were domesticated some 6500 years ago, the horse and cattle herding nomads of the Eurasian steppe or parts of it..."

If by "not long" you mean at least 3,000 years... Anyhow horse domestication is surely of later date, closer to the real beginning of IE expansion, c. 3500 BCE.

"This process, I think, would involve quite enough allele spreading to do the LP sowing trick, would it not?"

The problem is that you don't see more lactase tolerance in Russia than in Britain, as would be the case if it was just an IE mediated gene (IEs were roaming Russia 3,000 years before they reached Britain and Russians have much more R1a1 than Britons). You see Basques with high lactose tolerance levels, in spite of not being IE (but being a shepherd people). Britons are not more IE than Italians or Greeks by any means, yet Britons are mainly lactose tolerant and Italians aren't.

I am with Razib in this: "adaptive alleles can be radically and quickly decoupled from demographic mass movements, as they sweep across populations and disregard phylogenetic considerations". Cultural elements, like cheese-making tradition, or maybe mere ecological/nutritional determinants, as the availability of a rich diet without need to resort to milk, may have been much more decissive maybe.

Posted by: Luis | March 2, 2008 1:35 AM