page_title: Aurochs
section_title: Domestication
hierarchical_section_title: Aurochs / Relationship with humans / Domestication
caption_attribution_description: Painting thought to either depict an aurochs, a cattle/aurochs cross, or simply an aurochs like cattle breed.[1] This painting is a copy of the original that was present at a merchant in Augsburg in the 19th century. The original probably dates from the 16th century. It is not known if the original as well the copy still exist somewhere (Van Vuure, 2003). Español: Uro (Bos taurus primigenius), agriotipo de las vacas y toros domésticos Original caption: "Augsburger Abbildung des Urs (echten Auerochsen)." Size: 5.0 x 3.1 in² (12.8 x 7.8 cm²)
context_page_description: The aurochs, also known as urus or ure, is an extinct species of large wild cattle that inhabited Asia, Europe, and North Africa. It is the ancestor of domestic cattle. The species survived in Europe until 1627, when the last recorded aurochs died in the Jaktorów Forest, Poland.
  During the Neolithic Revolution, which occurred during the early Holocene, at least two aurochs domestication events occurred: one related to the Indian subspecies, leading to zebu cattle, and the other related to the Eurasian subspecies, leading to taurine cattle. Other species of wild bovines were also domesticated, namely the wild water buffalo, gaur, wild yak and banteng. In modern cattle, many breeds share characteristics of the aurochs, such as a dark colour in the bulls with a light eel stripe along the back, or a typical aurochs-like horn shape.
context_section_description: The aurochs, which ranged throughout much of Eurasia and Northern Africa during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, is the wild ancestor of modern cattle. Archaeological evidence shows that domestication occurred independently in the Near East and the Indian subcontinent between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, giving rise to the two major domestic subspecies observed today: the humpless taurine cattle (European cattle, Bos taurus taurus) and the humped indicine cattle (Zebu, Bos taurus indicus), respectively. This is confirmed by genetic analyses of matrilineal mitochondrial DNA sequences, which reveal a marked differentiation between modern B. t. taurus and B. t. indicus haplotypes, demonstrating their derivation from two genetically divergent wild populations. The sanga cattle (Bos taurus africanus), a zebu-like cattle breed with no back hump, is commonly believed to originate from crosses between humped zebus and taurine cattle breeds. A 1991 study of the bone morphology of domestic taurine cattle from Egypt from the third millennium theorised that sanga cattle were independently domesticated in Africa and that bloodlines of taurine and zebu cattle were introduced only within the last few hundred years. However, a 1996 study of mitochondrial genetics indicates this is highly unlikely. 
  A number of mitochondrial DNA studies, most recently from the 2010s, suggest that all domesticated taurine cattle originated from about 80 wild female aurochs in the Near East. Domestication of the aurochs began in the southern Caucasus and northern Mesopotamia from about the sixth millennium BC. Domesticated cattle and aurochs are so different in size that they have been regarded as separate species; however, large ancient cattle and aurochs have more similar morphological characteristics, with significant differences only in the horns and some parts of the skull.
  Aurochs were independently domesticated in India. Indian zebu, although domesticated eight to 10 thousand years ago, are related to Indian aurochs (B. p. namadicus) that diverged from the Near Eastern ones some 200,000 years ago. The Near Eastern (B. p. primigenius) and African aurochs (B. p. africanus) groups are thought to have split some 25,000 years ago, probably 15,000 years before domestication.
  Aurochs became extinct in Britain during the Bronze Age, and analysis of bones from aurochs that lived about the same time as domesticated cattle has suggested no genetic contribution to modern breeds. Some older studies dispute this. One study has pointed to possible introgression of local aurochs into the "Turano-Mongolian" type of cattle now found in northern China, Mongolia, Korea and Japan, another found small introgression into local Italian breeds, with a later study finding similar results in indigenous British and Irish cattle landraces. In this last study, researchers mapped the draft genome of a British aurochs dated to 6,750 years before present and compared it to the genomes of 73 modern cattle populations and found that traditional cattle breeds of Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and English origin – such as Highland, Dexter, Kerry, Welsh Black, and White Park, had more genetic similarity to the aurochs in question than other populations. Another study concluded that because of this genomic introgression of the aurochs into cattle breeds, one might argue, that in "the bigger picture across the aurochs/cattle range, perhaps several subpopulations of aurochs are not extinct at all" but partially survive in such breeds.
caption: Charles Hamilton Smith's copy of a painting possibly dating to the 16th century
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