ABSTRACT
An adjunct to livestock domestication, the consumption of milk and milk products as food dates back thousands of years. Historians know that Indian herders kept cows and buffaloes for their milk as early 3500 BCE. Activities related to dairying enliven frieze art from Ur (ca. 2900 BCE). Worldwide, communities varied in their acceptance of milk from different kinds of animals-asses, camels, cows, goats, reindeer, sheep, yaks, and possibly llamas. Goats have proved especially adaptable, enabling herders to settle such unpromising terrain as the mountains of Greece, the Mongolian plains, and the South African veldt, all of which offered suitable pasturage and a landscape the nimble animals could easily traverse.
