Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany.
Center for Archaeological Science, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
Sci Adv. 2023 Apr 14;9(15):eadf0345. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adf0345. Epub 2023 Apr 12.
The extreme environments of the Tibetan Plateau offer considerable challenges to human survival, demanding novel adaptations. While the role of biological and agricultural adaptations in enabling early human colonization of the plateau has been widely discussed, the contribution of pastoralism is less well understood, especially the dairy pastoralism that has historically been central to Tibetan diets. Here, we analyze ancient proteins from the dental calculus ( = 40) of all human individuals with sufficient calculus preservation from the interior plateau. Our paleoproteomic results demonstrate that dairy pastoralism began on the highland plateau by ~3500 years ago. Patterns of milk protein recovery point to the importance of dairy for individuals who lived in agriculturally poor regions above 3700 m above sea level. Our study suggests that dairy was a critical cultural adaptation that supported expansion of early pastoralists into the region's vast, non-arable highlands, opening the Tibetan Plateau up to widespread, permanent human occupation.
青藏高原的极端环境对人类生存构成了相当大的挑战，需要新的适应。虽然生物和农业适应在早期人类对高原的殖民化中所起的作用已被广泛讨论，但畜牧业的贡献却鲜为人知，特别是在历史上一直是藏人饮食核心的乳制品畜牧业。在这里，我们分析了来自高原内部具有足够牙垢保存的所有人类个体的牙垢（=40）中的古代蛋白质。我们的古蛋白组学结果表明，乳制品畜牧业在大约 3500 年前就已经在高原上开始了。牛奶蛋白回收模式表明，对于那些生活在海拔 3700 米以上、农业资源匮乏地区的人来说，乳制品非常重要。我们的研究表明，乳制品是一种关键的文化适应，支持了早期牧民向该地区广阔的、不适宜耕种的高地扩张，使青藏高原能够广泛、永久地有人居住。
