Fuel of the Franks

That dustup in 1200 BC Tollense provides a wide snapshot of the LBA North. Some researchers figured - hey, they're the ancestors of modern White People, how's their lactose tolerance? We can test Cochran and Harpending on this!

(We don't, here, need to discuss "Indo-European" theories. We actually have the people - never mind pots, nor other forms of language.)

Joachim Burger presents the results - 92.9% were weaned. Lactase persistence existed but was uncommon and not - yet - a factor of Darwinian "Selection". In retrospect perhaps the Black Forest and the fisheries weren't the space for animal husbandry; milk in bulk comes from cows. (Also from sheep and goats, but those hilly areas are populated by... hillmen. Impoverished, depopulated, clannish, don't fight well far past their hills. Incas excepted.) Cows need pasture and most lowlands are earmarked for human-edible crops.

Another commenter counter-proposes AD 800-1000. Notable span - Charlemagne's Austrasia.

Here I wonder about the Low Countries reclaimed from the old Doggerland plain. Salt flats are poor for crops but might support grasses. The 7.1% drift toward this new European Rajasthan. Breaking out into Europe with the Franks, especially that greatest Frank.

BEWARE 9/6: Davidski has words. He is an expert in genetic structure on which job this paper these authors fall down. Now, my post here doesn't care about the structure going in; it is about the structure going out. Still: for those seeking a more refined snapshot of the ethnicities arrayed at Tollense, they'll need to await a new, corrective paper.

MOAR 10/28: Merchant massacre! If they were Southern European then that would explain the low lactase.