What the Near Eastern aurochs looked like

Taurine cattle in Europe descend from both the local European aurochs populations as well as the Near Eastern aurochs. Initially, the aurochs was domesticated in the Near East about 11.000 years ago. There was probably no domestication of aurochs in Europe, but there was subsequent introgression from local populations in Europe (go here). Nevertheless, the Near Eastern aurochs (which was still a member of the primigenius subspecies) is the main ancestor of the taurine cattle on this world. Therefore, it would be interesting to know what the Near Eastern aurochs looked like. 

 

The problem is that there are no historic descriptions describing the life appearance of the Near Eastern aurochs and also the skeletal remains have not been described in detail in the literature yet. However, we know that the African aurochs and the aurochs of Europe were morphologically more or less identical (see van Vuure, 2005), so that it is highly likely that the Near Eastern aurochs had the same morphology. The question is, in this regard, how large the aurochs in the Near East were. The giants of 200 cm withers height were probably limited to Europe (only “probably” because the very old remains of an aurochs from Tunisia of 700.000 years ago were very large as well), so it is not likely that the aurochs in the Near East reached the same size. But it is also unlikely that the bulls were smaller than 160 cm, because there are no aurochs remains of either Bos primigenius primigenius or Bos primigenius africanus that indicate bulls smaller than a withers height of 160 cm. 

Regarding the coat colour, it is questionable if there were any differences to the aurochs of Europe. So far, the evidence for colour saddles in aurochs bulls is limited to Africa, while there is only evidence for black bulls in the primigenius subspecies. 

A difference between the European primigenius aurochs and domestic cattle is the colour of the dorsal stripe. While historic evidence suggest that the dorsal stripe in bulls of at least the Central and Eastern European aurochs was whitish grey (according to Sigismund von Herberstein it was composed of white hair mixed with black hair, see van Vuure 2005), the dorsal stripe of wildtype coloured domestic bulls is grey only in breeds that have the mutation that removes the red pigment, such as Podolian cattle or Tudanca, while it is yellowish, reddish or reddish brown in all wildtype coloured bulls that have red pigment in their coat. Now the question is if the dorsal stripe of all aurochs populations, or at least of all B. p. primigenius populations, was whitish grey or if the dorsal stripe of the Near Eastern aurochs, which are the main ancestors of domestic cattle, displayed the colour palette from yellowish to reddish brown. As there is no evidence telling us anything about the colour of the Near Eastern aurochs, we will never know. However, we know that Southern European aurochs share the mitochondrial T haplotype with cattle, and it is very likely that the Near Eastern aurochs had the T haplotype as well. Central and Northern European aurochs had the P haplotype. Therefore, as Northern and Southern primigenius aurochs differed genetically, it is not impossible that there were subtle differences in coat colour characteristics such as the dorsal stripe. If the Near Eastern aurochs had a whitish grey dorsal stripe like those in Europe, the colour of the dorsal stripe is a general difference between the wildtype (B. p. primigenius) and the domestic form. 

 

Literature

 

Cis van Vuure: Retracing the aurochs – history, morphology and ecology of an extinct wild ox. 2005.