7000 years ago is Neolithic, not Paleolithic. However, it doesn't matter to me. I still consume small amounts of dairy, and call it Primal.

There are a lot of reasons people are anti-dairy. Some of those reasons are justifiable, many are not.

Bottom line: dairy entered into the human diet because SOME people have evolved the ability to digest milk as adults. Something like 80% of the world's population doesn't have this ability. If they consume dairy it is after some processing (e.g. cultured, as yoghurt or kefir, as butter etc.)

This is one instance where humans have evolved since the paleolithic. Whatever you feel about the food industry, conditions of animal care etc. etc. You are either a milk-digesting person (like me) or you aren't.

PS: as a diabetic, I very seldom drink milk (too many carbs) I use cream in coffee and make yoghurt.

Lactose and galactose seem to be fairly major issues for some. At any rate, as hard to digest sugars, they feed bacteria in all the wrong places if consumed to excess.

I eat aged cheese only, and butter, as I have digestive problems, but I figure that fermented, especially heavily aged dairy is probably better because of the lactose, galactose issue.

Whether people ate things or not, is not a huge concern to me, more whether its healthy. In that sense, for me, paleo is an ideal, a template not a hard and fast rule.

I make homemade kefir (not the store bought stuff, which is not even close as healthy and unnecessarily expensive). The longer that you culture it, the less lactose there is.

Your question is a good one. I gave you a +1. It is very interesting that we, the human race, are currently in the middle of a shift with our genetic structure to lactose tolerance. Does this show how long it takes for a mutation to become established? And this new data gives us a better idea how long we have been drinking milk.

Personally, older is better, to my way of thinking. I don't want to be part of the experimental group. I don't want to be selected against. Let someone else be part of the experimental group.

I will "indulge" with a glass of raw milk we get from a cow share down the road. That might be once ever 2 weeks or so. other than that, i don't do any other dairy. At the end of the day, it's about figuring out what works for your body or not. Paleo. Primal. Ancestral. Whatever you want to call it. I don't condone any raw dairy. Our dairy system in the US absolutely sucks and is totally backwards.

I don't know if it's because it's not politically correct or not, but you don't hear enough about ethnicity/genetic origins in these conversations. The people who tolerate dairy well and those who don't are largely determined by this. Many people of European origin can tolerate dairy, while most of African or Asian origin cannot. This is legitimately helpful information to know, at least I think so.

I will have some butter now and again, but on a very rare occasion. I am one of those people who doesn't tolerate dairy very well. I don't get horribly sick, but it always seems to upset my stomach.

Naming and categorizing it won't change its effect on you, right? It doesn't matter how old or new a certain food is, if you like it and tolerate it, eat it. If you have an allergy to orgainc grass fed beef liver will you still eat it just because it's super paleo? Don't put yourself in unnecessary cages, we already have other people doing that for us ;)