There is little doubt that dairy foods were an important part of the prehistoric diet of Northern Europe, from as early as Neolithic times. The Secondary Products Revolution a term created by Andrew Sherratt categorises the secondary uses of draught animals for milk.

'Milk has several advantages. From a dietary point of view, it supplies the amino-acid lysine, which is missing in a cereal-based food. It contains fat, protein and sugar in a balanced form, and is a useful source of calcium. Being liquid it is easily handled, and can be converted into a variety of storable products.'(Sherratt 1981 : 276)

Archaeology has now concrete evidence that milk products were consumed throughout Europe from Neolithic times due to a new testing technique developed by R.P.Evershed and S.N.Dudd ' The stable carbon isotope compositions of individual fatty acid components of remnant fats preserved in archaeological pottery vessels show that dairying was a component of archaeological economies' (Evershed & Dudd 1998 : 1478). At many causeway camps in Southern Britain, a high proportion of the bones excavated, were of calves. 

'The cattle bones from Hambledon Hill are primarily those of older females and young calves. One archaeologist has interpreted these as the kill residue from a dairying herd kept in the settlement enclosure of Hambledon Hill' (Parker Pearson 1993 : 48 ) This indicates not just the consumption of veal, but a need for a large supply of milk for the community. The management of cattle herds continued through the Bronze Age and in some way took on a ritual significance at various burial mounds. Perhaps it was an indication of a person’s prestige and wealth as to how many cattle were consumed at the burial feast. Displaying the quantity consumed by covering the tomb with the heads of the cattle consumed. At Irthlingborough one of these mounds excavated revealed 184 cattle skulls (Parker Pearson 1993 : 78). Also, Strabo tells us that one of the trade goods exported to Europe from Britain prior to the Roman invasion was that of Hides (Strabo 1 1: 253)' It bears grain, cattle, gold, silver, and iron. These things are exported from the island as also hides, slaves, and dogs) Strabo also comments on the cattle in Britain when he talks about the inhabitants of the Cassiderides though to be the Scilly Isles and Cornwall (Strabo

 1 1 :157) 'They live off their herds . ........ As they have mines of tin and lead, they give these metals and the hides from their cattle to the sea traders'. These quotations support the conclusion that large herds of cattle were a common sight in ancient Britain. Milk would have been available all year round due to good animal husbandry. Although the milk would have been more plentiful, sweet and rich in the Spring. The storing of surplus dairy produce would have been important to such a culture, as plentiful supplies of milk would subside during the Winter months. This problem was overcome in part by storing Butter in wooden containers and burying them in marshlands or peat bogs. Deep in the peat levels of the marsh the surplus Butter would keep fresh during the Summer months. Only to be removed when required during the Winter. Archaeologists in Ireland have discovered large quantities of this Bog Butter. 'Many discoveries of this 'bog butter' have been made, ranging in quantity from a few pounds to as much as a hundredweight' (Renfrew 1985: 1 5 ). I have held a wooden stave bucket containing at least 5 kilo of Ancient Butter from the Royal Cornwall Museum store, in Truro. Mr H. Maulslay found this butter in the neighbourhood of Ougherard, County Galway in 1906. He reported 'This cask containing Irish Butter was found when turf was being cut five feet below the surface in solid peat.' ( See Fig 4 ). It is a pale yellow in colour and a grainy consistency, and it smells quite dreadful. Fascinating though to think that this particular bucket full of rancid butter was churned by someone in Ireland, a couple of thousand years ago, when the map of Europe was dominated by Roman legions. The Northern European taste for Butter is still with us, no matter how many health warnings there may be about its consumption. We have a tradition of eating butter for possibly 6,000 years from Neolithic times. So it is not surprising it is a habit hard to rid ourselves of Strabo thought it warranted mentioning that the Celtiberians ate butter instead of olive oil with their bread even though they had access to olive oil in the south of Spain (Strabo 1 1 :75) 'instead of olive oil they use butter'.  

Figure 5.  Clay vessel filled with milk and hot stones during the process of soft-cheese making.

However, bogs are not a good environment for storing hard cheeses, which would have been an important source of protein and calcium in their diet in the Winter months. Hard Cheese needs a suitable place to store as it matures, somewhere that is cool and dark. In prehistory the obvious place to store cheese for the Winter months would have been in caves. Not only does a cave store the cheese perfectly, it can impart flavour to the cheese in the form of localised moulds that live in the cave. Cheeses made of Ewe's milk such Roquefort, from France are said to acquire their unique flavour from moulds that live in the caves of that region. In Britain the famous Cheddar cheese was developed in the caves of the Cheddar gorge where the extensive caves were used to store and mature this cheese. Caves however are not a widespread feature in the Northern European landscape. It strikes me that the manmade underground structures known as fogous in Cornwall (Souterrains), ( See Fig 5 found in several parts of Britain, could have been constructed partly for this purpose, as well as possibly for the storage of wines and meads. As many as 200 examples of souterrains have been discovered in Scotland dating from the first century BC to the third century AD. On Orkney and Shetland they are built entirely underground yet in the eastern Scotland they are only partly subterranean ( Dyer 1990 : 139).. It is possible however that not all British prehistoric tribes made cheese. The writer Strabo says about the British in (Vol. 1 1: 255) of his Geography 'some of them although well supplied with milk make no cheese'. This might account for the lack of these archaeological features in some parts of Britain. Tacitus when describing the Germans mentions underground stores such as fogou's and souterrains. (Tacitus Germania : 16)  

Figure 6.  Iron Age fogou of Carn Euny, Cornwall

'They have also the habit of hollowing out caves underground and heaping masses of refuse on the top. In these they can escape the winter's cold and store their produce.' This indicates that the practice of making artificial caves for food storage was widespread in Europe. The secondary product revolution, (the use of milk products from draught animals) must have had a momentous effect on farming settlements. Ceramics had to be developed to store and strain the milk during cheese and butter making processes. Storage facilities were needed to preserve surplus butter for the winter months, and underground caves sought or made to mature cheese products.

Also the size of a families herd would have become a status symbol indicated by the amount of cattle that could be consumed at a burial, and the deposition of cattle heads as a testimony to this status.