P. Polgár-piócási-dú´ló´, T. Polgár-csó´szhalom-dú´ló´, . ??etice-kyjovice, . Mold, . Ludwinowo et al., Rosheim and Bischoffsheim for the NeoMilk project (ERC advanced grant (FP7-IDEAS-ERC/ 324202) attributed to R.P. Evershed, www.neomilk-erc.eu), carried out the statistical analysis, designed and coordinated the study. L.K. provided field data for Hostivice-Sadová, Chot?budice and ? erný V? l, and provided additional site information, Data accessibility. This article has no additional data. Authors' contributions. R.E.G. collected field data for the sites Apc-Berekalja, Fü zseabony-Gubakú t

J. Clutton-brock, Contributions to discussion, Farming practice in British prehistory, pp.218-220, 1981.

A. J. Legge, Aspects of cattle husbandry, Farming practice in British prehsitory, pp.169-181, 1981.

A. G. Sherratt, G. Hodder, . Issacs, and . Hammond, Plough and pastoralism: aspects of the secondary products revolution, Pattern of the past: studied in honor, pp.261-306, 1981.

J. T. Troelsen, Adult-type hypolactasia and regulation of lactase expression, Biochim. Biophys. Acta, vol.1723, pp.19-32, 2005.

F. Simoons, Primary adult lactose intolerance and the milking habit: a problem in biologic and cultural interrelations. II. A culture historical hypothesis, Am. J. Dig. Dis, vol.15, pp.695-710, 1970.

C. Holden and R. Mace, Phylogenetic analysis of the evolution of lactose digestion in adults, Hum. Biol, vol.65, pp.605-628, 1997.

Y. Itan, A. Powell, M. A. Beaumont, J. Burger, and M. G. Thomas, The origins of lactase persistence in Europe, PLoS Comput. Biol, vol.5, 2009.

Y. Itan, B. L. Jones, C. J. Ingram, D. M. Swallow, and M. G. Thomas, A worldwide correlation of lactase persistence phenotype and genotypes, BMC Evol. Biol, vol.10, 2010.

C. Gamba, Genome flux and stasis in a five millennium transect of European prehistory, Nat. Commun, vol.5, 2014.

M. Leonardi, P. Gerbault, M. G. Thomas, and J. Burger, The evolution of lactase persistence in Europe. A synthesis of archaeological and genetic evidence, Int. Dairy J, vol.22, pp.88-97, 2012.

P. Gerbault, A. Liebert, Y. Itan, A. Powell, M. Currat et al., Evolution of lactase persistence: an example of human niche construction, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, vol.366, pp.863-877, 2011.

J. D. Vigne, The origins of animal domestication and husbandry: a major change in the history of humanity and the biosphere, C. R. Biol, vol.334, pp.171-181, 2011.

D. Helmer, L. Gourichon, and E. Vila, The development of the exploitation of products from Capra and Ovis (meat, milk and fleece) from the PPNB to the Early Bronze in the northern Near East, BC cal.). Anthropozoologica, vol.8700, pp.41-69, 2000.

D. Spiteri and C. , Regional asynchronicity in dairy production and processing in early farming communities of the northern Mediterranean, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 113, vol.13, pp.594-607, 2016.
URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01913046

R. P. Evershed, Earliest date for milk use in the Near East and southeastern Europe linked to cattle herding, Nature, vol.455, pp.528-531, 2008.

M. Salque, P. Bogucki, J. Pyzel, I. Sobkowiak-tabaka, R. Grygiel et al., Earliest evidence for cheese making in the sixth millennium BC in northern Europe, Nature, vol.493, pp.522-525, 2013.

M. Roffet-salque, R. Evershed, S. Arkadiusz, . Iwona, . Marta et al., Shifting pottery use and animal management at Kopyd?owo (Poland) traced through lipid residue analyses of pottery vessels, Kopyd?owo, site 6 Neolithic settlements from the borderlands between Kujavia and Greater Poland, pp.Profil-archeo, 2015.

J. Jakucs, Between the Vin?a and Linearbandkeramik Worlds: the diversity of practices and identities in the 54th-53rd centuries cal BC in southwest Hungary and beyond, J. World Prehist, vol.29, pp.267-336, 2016.

P. Bogucki, Forest farmers and stockholders. Early agriculture and its consequences in northcentral Europe, 1988.

J. Lüning, Steinzeitliche Bauern in Deutschland. Die Landwirtschaft im Neolithikum, 2000.

A. Tresset, J. Vigne, C. Arbogast, and . Jeunesse, La chasse, principal élément structurant la diversité des faunes archéologiques du Néolithique ancien, en Europe tempérée et en Méditerranée: tentative d'interprétation fonctionnelle, Rôle et statut de la chasse dans le Néolithique ancien danubien (5500 -4900 av J-C) Actes Premières rencontres danubiennes, pp.121-159, 2001.

C. Knipper, Die räumliche Organisation der linearbandkeramischen Rinderhaltung: naturwissenschaftliche und archäologische Untersuchungen, 2011.

R. M. Arbogast, C. Jeunesse, J. Colledge, . Connolly, . Dobney et al., Early Neolithic pastoral traditions and cultural groups in northern France, The origins and spread of domestic animals in southwest Asia and Europe, pp.271-282, 2013.

J. Döhle, Haustierhaltung und Jagd in der Linienbandkeramik-ein Überblick, Z. Archäol, vol.27, pp.105-124, 1993.

L. Hachem, Le site néolithique de Cuiry-lès-Chaudardes-I. De L'analyse de la faune á la structuration sociale, 522 p, 2011.

P. Bogucki, Animal traction and household economies in Neolithic Europe, Antiquity, vol.67, pp.492-503, 1993.

L. Kova?iková, S. Bréhard, R. ?umberová, M. Balasse, and A. Tresset, The new insights into the subsistence and early farming from Neolithic settlements in Central Europe: the archaeozoological evidence from the Czech Republic, Archaeofauna, vol.21, pp.71-79, 2012.

A. Tresset, Le rôle des relations homme-animal dans l'évolution économique et culturelle des sociétés des Vème-VIème millénaires en Bassin Parisien, 1996.

R. M. Arbogast, Restes osseux d'annimaux du Rabané du nord-est de la France, vol.148, 1993.

N. Russell, Cattle as wealth in Neolithic Europe: where's the beef?, The archaeology of value: rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org Proc. R. Soc. B 284: 20170905 essays on prestige and the process of valuation, pp.42-54, 1998.

B. Arbuckle, The rise of cattle cultures in Bronze Age Anaolia, J. East. Mediterr. Archaeol. Herit. Stud, vol.2, pp.277-297, 2015.

A. Marciniak, Placing animals in the Neolithic: social zooarchaeology of prehistoric farming communities, 2005.

T. Ingold, Hunter, pastoralists and ranchers reindeer economics and their transformations, vol.340, 1988.

P. Ducos, Chapitre 2: Èlaboration de statistiques, L'origine des animaux domestiques en Palestine, pp.6-15, 1968.

A. J. Legge, Excavations at Grimes Graves, Norfolk 1972-1976. Fascicule 4: animals, environment and the Bronze Age economy, 1992.

J. Vigne and D. Helmer, Was milk a 'secondary product' in the Old World Neolithisation process? Its role in the domestication of cattle, sheep and goats, Anthropozoologica, vol.42, pp.9-40, 2007.

A. Whittle, The first farmers of central Europe: diversity in LBK lifeways, vol.3, pp.49-100, 2013.

A. Grant, C. ;-r-wilson, . Grigson, and . Payne, The use of tooth wear as a guide to the age of domestic ungulates, Ageing and sexing animal bones from archaeological sites, pp.91-108, 1982.

R. E. Gillis, R. M. Arbogast, J. F. Piningre, K. Debue, and J. D. Vigne, Prediction models for age-at-death estimates for calves, using unfused epiphyses and diaphyses, Int. J. Osteoarchaeol, vol.25, pp.912-922, 2015.
URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01148336

J. D. Vigne, Les Mammifères postglaciaires de Corse, étude Archéozoologique, 1988.

R. L. Lyman, Quantitative paleozoology, 2008.

P. Gerbault, R. Gillis, J. Vigne, A. Tresset, S. Bréhard et al., Statistically robust representation and comparison of mortality profiles in archaeozoology, J. Archaeol. Sci, vol.71, pp.24-32, 2016.

S. Payne, Kill-off patterns in sheep and goats: the mandibles from A?van Kale, Anatolian Stud, vol.23, pp.281-303, 1973.

. R-core-team, R: a language and environment for statistical computing, R Foundation for Statistical Computing, 2013.

H. Wickham, Ggplot2: elegant graphics for data analysis, 2009.

B. Auguie, Gridextra: functions in grid graphics, 2012.

G. R. Warnes, B. Bolker, and T. Lumley, Gtools: various R programming tools, 2015.

O. Nenadic and M. Greenacre, Correspondence analysis in R, with two-and three-dimensional graphics: the ca package, J. Stat. Softw, vol.20, pp.1-13, 2007.

L. Statisticat, Laplacesdemon: complete environment for Bayesian inference, 2016.

W. N. Venables and B. D. Ripley, Modern applied statistics with S, 4th edn, 2002.

Ø. Hammer, D. Harper, and P. D. Ryan, PAST: paleontological statistics software package for education and data analysis, 2001.

P. Halstead, Mortality models and milking: problems of uniformitarianism, optimality and equifinality reconsidered, Anthropozoologica, vol.27, pp.3-20, 1998.

R. Gillis, Osteological and isotopic contributions to the study of dairy husbandry during the European Neolithic, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, 2012.

L. Pe?ke, P?ísp?vek k poznání po?átku dojení skotu v prav?ku (Contribution to the beginning of milking in Prehistory), Archeol. Rozhledy, vol.46, pp.97-104, 1994.

M. Balasse and A. Tresset, Early weaning of Neolithic domestic cattle (Bercy, France) revealed by intra-tooth variation in nitrogen isotope ratios, 2002.

, J. Archaeol. Sci, vol.29, pp.853-859

R. Gillis, S. Bréhard, A. B?l??escu, J. Ughetto-monfrin, D. Popovici et al., Sophisticated cattle dairy husbandry at Bordu?ani-Popin? (Romania, fifth millennium BC): the evidence from complementary analysis of mortality profiles and stable isotopes, World Archaeol, vol.45, pp.447-472, 2013.

R. E. Gillis, I. Carrère, S. Seguí, M. Radi, G. Vigne et al., Neonatal mortality, young calf slaughter and milk production during the Early Neolithic of north western Mediterranean, Int. J. Osteoarchaeol, vol.26, pp.303-313, 2016.

D. Helmer and H. Monchot, Un site mésolithique de chasse à l'aurochs, Anthropozoologica, vol.41, pp.215-228, 2006.

M. I. Soysal and S. Kök, The last survivors of grey cattle resisting extinction. A case study of characteristics and sustainability of traditional systems of native grey cattle breeds, Options Méditerranéenes A, vol.78, pp.55-63, 2006.

M. Greenacre, Biplots in practice, 2010.

L. Quellec and J. , Provoking lactation by the insufflations technique as documented by the rock images of the Sahara, Anthropozoologica, vol.46, pp.65-126, 2011.

R. E. Gillis, A calf's eye view of milk production: Tony's Legge contribution to dairy husbandry studies, Economic zooarchaeology: studies in hunting, herding and early agriculture, pp.135-142, 2017.

B. A. Noddle, Flesh on the bones, Ciraea, vol.7, pp.31-51, 1990.

A. Bonal, J. Bougler, P. Del-porto, and A. Havy, Le race de Salers, 1985.

A. Rosati, J. Galal, . Boyazoglu, and . Hammond, Breeding strategies for the Mediterranean Modicana cattle breed, Workshop on developing breeding strategies for lower input production environments, pp.503-510, 1999.

M. Saqalli, A. Salavert, S. Bréhard, R. Bendrey, J. Vigne et al., Revisiting and modelling the woodland farming system of the early Neolithic Linear Pottery Culture (LBK), 5600-4900 B.C. Veg, Hist. Archaeobot, vol.23, pp.37-50, 2014.
URL : https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01354330

A. Kreuz, Closed forest or open woodland as natural vegetation in the surroundings of Linearbandkeramik settlements? Veg, Hist. Archaeobot, vol.17, pp.51-64, 2008.

S. Gregg, Foragers and farmers: population interaction and agriculture expansion in prehistoric Europe, 275 p, 1988.

P. Rasmussen, Analysis of goat/sheep faeces from Egolzwil 3, Switzerland: evidence for branch and twig foddering of livestock in the Neolithic, 1993.

, J. Archaeol. Sci, vol.20, pp.479-502

S. Thiébault, L'homme, la végétation, et la montagne au Néolithique, Populations néolithique et environnements, pp.243-260, 2005.

R. A. Fraser, A. Bogaard, M. Schäfer, R. M. Arbogast, and T. H. Heaton, Integrating botanical, faunal and human stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values to reconstruct land use and palaeodiet at LBK Vaihingen an der Enz, World Archaeol, vol.45, pp.492-517, 2013.

J. A. Pearson, S. ;-m-arkadiusz, . Iwona, . Marta, and . Miko?aj, Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of humans and animals from Kopyd?owo 6. In Kopyd?owo, site 6 Neolithic settlements from the borderlands between, pp.355-364, 2015.

A. Bogaard, Crop manuring and intensive land management by Europe's first farmers, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, vol.110, pp.589-601, 2013.

G. Jones, M. Charles, A. Bogaard, and J. Hodgson, Crops and weeds: the role of weed functional types in the identification of crop husbandry methods, 2010.

, J. Archaeol. Sci, vol.37, pp.70-77

C. Reinhardt, A. Reinhardt, and V. Reinhardt, Social behaviour and reporductive perfrormance in semiwild Scottish Highland cattle, Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci, vol.15, issue.86, pp.90058-90062, 1986.

, rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org Proc. R. Soc. B, vol.284, p.20170905