Got milk, in Turkey?

Let's see Barley in Iran, Domesticated Cattle in Turkey... it looks like the mid-point geographically between them, southern Armenia, should merit more interest.

Southern Armenia is 40-45% Y-DNA R1b, and has 8,000 yo megalithic structures - is this the origin of the Indo-Europeans??

I'm not sure where you get the 40-45% figures for R1b. Last I checked, it was approximately 20% in Armenian populations. You also have 20-25% J2, which probably represents the dispersion routes of Anatolian farmers across the mediterranean. These haplotypes all show in the Armenian population, but I do agree with you that Armenia should be explored. Further, if you look at the various J2 haplotypes, particularly J2F, you'll see the age of dispersion at approximately 10,000-8,000 years prior. It is a known fact that barley and wheat were domesticated in what's now Urfa approximately 9000 years ago. Further, habitable structures as well as what looks like some type of temple was unearthed dating to the same period. This may indicate ancestors to Indo-Europeans but Armenia must be further explored (especially in the molecular data of Armenians, as well as the archaeological history).

According the articles, people from Turkey can not drink milk (since they did discover using milk but they didn't drink it) instead they consumed cheese, yogurt etc.

Does lactose intolerance tolerates yogurt? Why?

lactose intolerant people can typically tolerate yogurt due to the bacterial cultures within (that create lactase)

Thanks! Since I got a nice answer for my first question, here comes the second: I am wondering if the earlier people did not drink milk since they were already lactose intolerant, or the intolerance developed later as an adaptation?

(my sort-of-prediction, generalized stereotypes)

Chinese: alcohol intolerant (flush), lactase intolerant
Mongol: alcohol tolerant, lactase intolerant fermented milk
Turks: alcohol intolerant, lactase intolerant kurds yogurt
European: alcohol tolerant, lactase tolerant cheese milk

with vast exceptions due to past mixing

Urfa is very interesting.

Betul:
There has been some work done on lactose intolerance genes in ancient European populations by Joachim Burger. Im not entirely sure but I think they found no evidence of lactose tolerance in German Neolithic skeletons that had clearly been cattle herders and milkers. To my mind that suggests that use of secondary products of milk came first (cheese, yoghurt etc) and at a later date there became a huge benefit to being lactose tolerant as you could get more energy from milk products.

Thanks for the answer Ross. It is interesting that the usage of secondary products of milk came first. Maybe unprocessed milk made them sick, so they stopped using it. Or maybe they were feeding other cattle animals with milk, hence considered milk to be non-food for them (speculations, speculations).

Helioprogenus said:
I'm not sure where you get the 40-45% figures for R1b. Last I checked, it was approximately 20% in Armenian populations.

Not true, check out the figures here:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/tcga/tcgapdf/Weale-HG-01-Armenia.pdf

Here is the full data on Armenians from Weale et al. 2001:

hg1 (PxR1a):
10/44 = 0.2273 Ararat
42/189 = 0.2222 North
56/140 = 0.4000 Syunik
92/215 = 0.4279 Karabakh
18/56 = 0.3214 Iranian
20/90 = 0.2222 West
238/734 = 0.3243 Armenian total

What's interesting too is that their Modal R1b values are 1-step from the Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH)!

Thanks for the link pconroy. It's interesting to note the various Y haplotypes within armenian populations though. Those of us from the Diaspora whose ancestral origins are traced to the Anatolian Plateau should exhibit lesser values of the R1b haplotype. As one moves further East, the values for R1b tend to increase. I don't know what the significance of this would be. Does it indicate European migrants settling in Eastern Armenia, while those in the Western Regions particularly within the Anatolian plateau received less European input? I also know that Armenians who tend to be lactose intolerant originate in the western regions, while those in the East, particularly in Karabagh tend to be more lactose tolerant. Happily though, we don't have the alcohol dehydrogenase mutation that japanese tend to have. That would be quite troubling.

"I also know that Armenians who tend to be lactose intolerant originate in the western regions"

Helioprogenus, the study shows that the cattle herders of Northwestern Turkey used milk in culinary, ~2000 years before than what we've already know. We've also known that Anatolia is a heritage of Armenians, thus those days that land was not Turkish. I am a lactose intolerant too, being from northwestern Turkey.

The book of Jared Diamond, "guns, germs and steel" has a unique theory of the differences throughout the middle & near eastern region - also regarding these alterations.

I see the 40-45% figures, but as you can see from the total, it's only about 33% of Armenians (who can trace their lineage to Armenia, not Anatolia) who show the R1b Haplotype. The actual figures when you take into account all individuals who identify themselves as Armenia, R1b comes closer to 20%. I know the paper's premise is that the geographically isolated Armenians show the higher frequency for the R1b, and it is intriguing. It is possible these populations seeded the UK, thereby contributing to the Atlantic haplotype, but if you take the geographical area of greater Armenia, Karabagh and Syunik tend to be the far Eastern end, whilst the central area would be around lake Van in Turkey. These Eastern Armenians may well represent the initial Caucasian Albanian population (in contrast to the Balkan Albanians) that were eventually assimilated and contributed to the modern Armenian ethnogenesis.