@article{discovery10155389,
       publisher = {Springer Science and Business Media LLC},
           month = {August},
          volume = {608},
            note = {This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.},
           pages = {336--345},
         journal = {Nature},
          number = {7922},
            year = {2022},
           title = {Dairying, diseases and the evolution of lactase persistence in Europe},
        keywords = {Archaeology, Evolutionary biology},
        abstract = {In European and many African, Middle Eastern and southern Asian populations, lactase persistence (LP) is the most strongly selected monogenic trait to have evolved over the past 10,000 years1. Although the selection of�LP and the consumption of�prehistoric milk must be linked, considerable uncertainty remains concerning their spatiotemporal configuration and specific interactions2,3. Here we provide detailed distributions of milk exploitation across Europe over the past 9,000 years using around�7,000 pottery fat residues from more than 550 archaeological sites. European milk use was widespread from the Neolithic period onwards but varied spatially and temporally in intensity. Notably,�LP selection varying with levels of prehistoric milk exploitation is no better at explaining LP allele frequency trajectories than uniform selection since the Neolithic period. In the UK Biobank4,5 cohort of 500,000 contemporary Europeans, LP genotype was only weakly associated with milk consumption and did not show consistent associations with improved fitness or health indicators. This suggests that other reasons for the beneficial effects of LP should be considered for its rapid frequency increase. We propose that lactase�non-persistent individuals consumed milk when it became available but, under conditions of famine and/or increased pathogen exposure, this was disadvantageous, driving LP selection in prehistoric Europe. Comparison of model likelihoods indicates that population fluctuations, settlement density and wild animal exploitation-proxies for these drivers-provide better explanations of LP selection than the extent of milk exploitation. These findings offer new perspectives on prehistoric milk exploitation and LP evolution.},
             url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05010-7},
          author = {Evershed, Richard P and Davey Smith, George and Roffet-Salque, M{\'e}lanie and Timpson, Adrian and Diekmann, Yoan and Lyon, Matthew S and Cramp, Lucy JE and Casanova, Emmanuelle and Smyth, Jessica and Whelton, Helen L and Dunne, Julie and Brychova, Veronika and {\vS}oberl, Lucija and Gerbault, Pascale and Gillis, Rosalind E and Heyd, Volker and Johnson, Emily and Kendall, Iain and Manning, Katie and Marciniak, Arkadiusz and Outram, Alan K and Vigne, Jean-Denis and Shennan, Stephen and Bevan, Andrew and Colledge, Sue and Allason-Jones, Lyndsay and Amkreutz, Luc and Anders, Alexandra and Arbogast, Rose-Marie and B{\ua}l{\ua}{\cs}escu, Adrian and B{\'a}nffy, Eszter and Barclay, Alistair and Behrens, Anja and Bogucki, Peter and Carrancho Alonso, {\'A}ngel and Carretero, Jos{\'e} Miguel and Cavanagh, Nigel and Cla{\ss}en, Erich and Collado Giraldo, Hipolito and Conrad, Matthias and Csengeri, Piroska and Czerniak, Lech and D{\ke}biec, Maciej and Denaire, Anthony and Dombor{\'o}czki, L{\'a}szl{\'o} and Donald, Christina and Ebert, Julia and Evans, Christopher and Franc{\'e}s-Negro, Marta and Gronenborn, Detlef and Haack, Fabian and Halle, Matthias and Hamon, Caroline and H{\"u}lshoff, Roman and Ilett, Michael and Iriarte, Eneko and Jakucs, J{\'a}nos and Jeunesse, Christian and Johnson, Melanie and Jones, Andy M and Karul, Necmi and Kiosak, Dmytro and Kotova, Nadezhda and Krause, R{\"u}diger and Kretschmer, Saskia and Kr{\"u}ger, Marta and Lefranc, Philippe and Lelong, Olivia and Lenneis, Eva and Logvin, Andrey and L{\"u}th, Friedrich and Marton, Tibor and Marley, Jane and Mortimer, Richard and Oosterbeek, Luiz and Oross, Kriszti{\'a}n and Pav{\'u}k, Juraj and Pechtl, Joachim and P{\'e}trequin, Pierre and Pollard, Joshua and Pollard, Richard and Powlesland, Dominic and Pyzel, Joanna and Raczky, P{\'a}l and Richardson, Andrew and Rowe, Peter and Rowland, Stephen and Rowlandson, Ian and Saile, Thomas and Seb{\Ho}k, Katalin and Schier, Wolfram and Schmalfu{\ss}, Germo and Sharapova, Svetlana and Sharp, Helen and Sheridan, Alison and Shevnina, Irina and Sobkowiak-Tabaka, Iwona and Stadler, Peter and St{\"a}uble, Harald and Stobbe, Astrid and Stojanovski, Darko and Tasi{\'c}, Nenad and van Wijk, Ivo and Vostrovsk{\'a}, Ivana and Vukovi{\'c}, Jasna and Wolfram, Sabine and Zeeb-Lanz, Andrea and Thomas, Mark G}
}