Did cheese start human civilization?

When your main source of food is milk and you can't digest it, you die.

It won't kill you by itself since it's only the sugar that's indigestible(milk has plenty of fat/protein), but it is not pleasant. Now, in combination with the other things that can kill you in the pre-modern world, yeah, I can see the selection pressure
 
It won't kill you by itself since it's only the sugar that's indigestible(milk has plenty of fat/protein), but it is not pleasant. Now, in combination with the other things that can kill you in the pre-modern world, yeah, I can see the selection pressure

You're right, I misspoke, I was thinking more of natural selection than milk literally killing people.
 
It won't kill you by itself since it's only the sugar that's indigestible(milk has plenty of fat/protein), but it is not pleasant. Now, in combination with the other things that can kill you in the pre-modern world, yeah, I can see the selection pressure
Which goes to show just how inconsequential cheese is, considering that most of the adult population across the entire world are lactose intolerant and get by just fine.
 
Which goes to show just how inconsequential cheese is, considering that most of the adult population across the entire world are lactose intolerant and get by just fine.

The fact that intolerants sometimes can digest cheese is not necessarily related with its history. Most traditional cheeses come from areas where most people can digest dairy. Just try to think in a traditional East Asian plate that has cheese in it.
 
The fact that intolerants sometimes can digest cheese is not necessarily related with its history. Most traditional cheeses come from areas where most people can digest dairy. Just try to think in a traditional East Asian plate that has cheese in it.
Eh? I'm not sure how that contradicts what I said, I was making a point of how being able to digest cheese clearly wasn't critical for human civilization to develop. Namely because East Asia among many other parts of the world have done just fine without cheese. Hell, the best Mexican cuisine doesn't have cheese (Tex-Mex can go to the cheesy hell it belongs in).
 
I did hear similar things about beers.
Now, one thing that always puzzled me, and it might be relevant, is why cheese seems to be uniquely indo-aryan.
I've never heard of Chinese/Viet/Japanese cheese. Was there any cheese in the Americas?

East Africans among others have been having cheese for a long time (though I think not as early as it seems that early Europeans/Middle Easterners). In the Americas there was no milk domesticate except maybe the Llamas; a quick google check suggests that Llama milk cheese is a thing (fairly minor), but I find no evidence of it existing before the Columbian Exchange.
 
East Africans among others have been having cheese for a long time (though I think not as early as it seems that early Europeans/Middle Easterners). In the Americas there was no milk domesticate except maybe the Llamas; a quick google check suggests that Llama milk cheese is a thing (fairly minor), but I find no evidence of it existing before the Columbian Exchange.
What about Chinese cheese? I know India has it (paneer) but never heard of any cheese East of that
 
What about Chinese cheese? I know India has it (paneer) but never heard of any cheese East of that
Neither did I.
Tofu is basically the East Asian equivalent, derived from soy rather milk. I don't know how early it is, but I suppose more recent than cheese.
I suppose that lactose intolerance would prevent dairy products from becoming widespread absent enabling factors.
 
No. Cereals were the beginning of civilization, and cured meat and fish was available long before cheese.
But cheese, and dairies in general, did play a major role in the secondary products revolution, whose reemphasising of herding went a long way towards de-urbanization for quite a while, though.
 
My father believes that cheese is the foundation of human civilization and its invention was central in its beginning. Let me explain his point a little.
According to him, cheese was revolutionary in that it was the first nutritious food humans could make which is consumable long after its creation, and, with some basic provisions to prevent mold, could be stored for the future....

I heard the same argument being made about bread and on one occasion even about beer. I tend to believe the bread part. I would even rate that more probable then the idea about cheese. It's easier to collect and store grains than finding a cow to milk.
 
Cheese was important but it only worked under certain climatic conditions. Grazing livestock. Soil. Rainfall. Low population density. Plus you had to be able to digest it. Like already said, alcohol may have been just as important. Soap may have been more important. Possibly domesticated horses? Not sure. Great subject.
 
I think we are all putting the cart before the horse. Or, should I say, the cheese before the goat.
Cheese could not exist until humans began domesticating milk producing animals. These animals, goats and sheep, were domesticated for their meat and wool. The use of their milk would only have come about as an after thought.

And, what do we mean by "civilization"? If it's being used in the old sense of a society in a settled location and having a hierarchical structure - derived for the Latin civitas - then it was the cultivation of grain that was the prime factor. If we mean the development of art, religion and a complex social structure; then those things existed long before the agricultural revolution and perhaps before the rise of modern humans.
 
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