* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Aurochs

Blobrana · L

"They are a little below the elephant in size and their strength and speed are extraordinary. They spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied." Thus Julius Caesar described the aurochs, an ancient ancestor of domestic cattle which inhabited much of Europe before being wiped out hundreds of years ago.

Today, the only evidence we have for the existence of these great bovines, which stood more than 2m high and weighed more than a tonne, are a few skeletons in museums and several dramatic cave paintings made by Cro-Magnon people tens of thousands of years ago. The latter show how these giant creatures - which had giant forward-facing horns and a white stripe down their spines - dominated the landscape and the imaginations of early human beings.

But now scientists are attempting to turn back the clock - by resurrecting the aurochs.
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Blobrana · L

Scientists are publishing details of their research of the DNA of large wild cattle that died out almost 400 years ago.
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Blobrana · L

Archaeological researchers at the University of Groningen have discovered that the aurochs, the predecessor of our present-day cow, lived in the Netherlands for longer than originally assumed. Remains of bones recently retrieved from a horn core found in Holwerd (Friesland), show that the aurochs became extinct in around AD 600 and not in the fourth century.
The last aurochs died in Poland in 1627. In January 2008, the bony core horn was unearthed in a mound near Holwerd by amateur-archaeologist Lourens Olivier from Ternaard. The Groningen Institute for Archaeology at the University of Groningen has established that it came from the left horn of an aurochs bull, and C14 dating reveals that the horn dates back to between AD 555 and 650.

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