Cattle domestication (aurochs)
Domesticación del bovino (uro)
- Date
- c. 8500 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Dja'de el-Mughara and Çayönü, upper Euphrates, Syria / Turkey
- Credited to
- PPNB communities of the upper Euphrates; zebu domesticated separately at Mehrgarh
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The taming of the aurochs, a one-tonne animal, for meat, and later for milk and draught power. Genetics shows that taurine cattle descend from a few dozen females from the upper Euphrates.
Two independent domestications: Bos taurus in the Fertile Crescent (c. 8500 BCE) and Bos indicus (zebu) in the Indus Valley (Mehrgarh, c. 7000 BCE); a third centre in the eastern Sahara (Nabta Playa) is debated.
What it led to
- Animal traction that multiplied arable land with the plough
- Cattle as wealth, dowry and prestige: the basis of pastoral aristocracies
- Major zoonoses: bovine tuberculosis, measles (derived from rinderpest), cowpox
- Milk and dairy products, and selection for lactase persistence
Built on
- Aurochs hunting
- Pens and enclosures
Made possible
- Seaborne colonisation with livestockc. 8500 BCE
- Milking and dairy consumptionc. 6500 BCE
- Megalithic astronomical alignmentc. 4800 BCE
- Animal traction: draught oxen and yokec. 4000 BCE
- Donkey domesticationc. 4000 BCE
- Ard (scratch plough)c. 3800 BCE
- Horse domesticationc. 3500 BCE (discutido)
- Butter and ghee (churning of cream)c. 2500 BCE
- Animal traction and yoke
- Wheeled cart