Got Milk? Our Breastfeeding Habits Are Older Than You Think

Babies' milk teeth carry their early food history, and this record remains stable for tens of thousands of years. 
We know at least six months of exclusive breastfeeding is the best start to a baby’s life. What’s amazing is it seems ancient hominids knew that too.
In a paper published in Nature, we analysed the tooth of an eight-year-old Neanderthal child and showed it was breastfed for its first seven months and had supplementary non-milk food for a further seven months, before being abruptly weaned completely. The period of exclusive breastfeeding is pretty much in perfect line with today’s maternal guidelines.