Researchers have deciphered the diet of an important nomadic people in Eastern European history.
By analysing dental calculus, the international team—which includes Griffith University researchers—provide the first direct evidence that the diet of the Scythians included milk from horses and other ruminants.
For centuries, the Scythians had been immortalised as an empire of horseback warrior nomads from the Iron Age steppe. However, recent genetic and isotopic studies had begun to dismantle this myth, revealing the ‘Scythians’ were not a single group, but a diverse, multi-ethnic population of heterogenous origins with population differences in their regimes ranging from pastoralism to agriculturalism.
Building on this shifting narrative, a new study in PLOS One offers the most detailed look yet at the dietary practices of Scythian-era populations.
By applying advanced paleo-proteomic analysis to ancient dental calculus (mineralised plaque) from individuals from Bilsk and Mamai-Gora in modern-day Ukraine, an international research team identified species-specific evidence of dairy consumption through whey, curd, and milk-fat-globule membrane proteins derived from ruminants (such as cattle, sheep, goats and horses).
“Finding horse milk proteins in ancient plaque from Scythian era individuals is a major breakthrough,” said Griffith University’s Jaruschka Pecnik, first author of the study.
“It proves that horses were part of their food system, but the scarcity of these findings raises questions about whether this reflects a preservation bias or a cultural pattern—perhaps a status-based hierarchy or a specific division of livestock functionality.”
“Dental calculus is a remarkable reservoir of personal history,” Dr Hevan Wilkin added.
“By capturing the proteins consumed, we can move beyond generalisations about subsistence strategies to reveal the actual food that was consumed due to the constant mineralisation of dental plaque throughout a person’s lifetime.”
