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Anthropology: Prehistoric mothers may have used baby bottles

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Prehistoric Babies Drank Animal Milk From Bottles

NPR said:
Breast or bottle? Apparently, parents of infants have been pondering these options for thousands of years.

So suggests a new study released Wednesday by the journal Nature. The researchers report finding nonhuman milk residue inside a type of ancient spouted clay bowl that sometimes featured animal feet and heads. The earliest examples of this kind of vessel — which the researchers are calling prehistoric baby bottles — date back more than 7,000 years.

"I can just imagine a little prehistoric child being given one of these with milk in it and laughing," says the paper's lead author, archaeologist Julie Dunne of the University of Bristol. "They're just fun. They're like a little toy as well." She says the animal-shaped vessels seem to represent "mythical animals" rather than realistically depicting any particular type of creature.

The researchers say the milk molecules they identified, via chemical and isotopic analysis, came from the ruminant family, which includes sheep, goats and cows. "This is the first time that we've been able to identify the types of foods fed to prehistoric babies," says Dunne.

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