Scientists have found material evidence of the consumption of yak milk by the ancient Mongolian elite. This was reported by the University of Michigan press service.
Milk has been an important resource in Mongolia for over 5,000 years. While consumption of cow, sheep, goat, and even horse milk has been reliably dated, it has been difficult to determine when humans began drinking yak milk until now. Scientists did not know the date of domestication, despite the large number of yak images or the close location of their remains to humans – it was unclear whether these were wild animals or domesticated.
Now, Ventresca Miller and her colleagues were investigating a 13th-century cemetery in northern Mongolia, in Khubsugul province. The tartar of one of the women contained traces of yak milk. “Our most important find was a distinguished woman buried wearing a birch bark hat called a ‘bogtog’ and a silk robe depicting a five-clawed golden dragon. Our proteomic analysis showed that he drank yak milk throughout his life,” the scientists say. The Bogtog was a national Mongolian headdress worn only by married women of high social status.
In addition, cottage cheese proteins obtained from cat milk and blood proteins of goats and horses were found in the teeth.
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