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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Since all these molar series belong to individuals of about the same age, the
variation can not be due to difference in age. The sex is also the same, at least
in the recent specimens, although it is not certain whether fig. 8 is a male or a
castrated male. This, however, should not produce a perceptible influence upon
the dental markings.

Here, too, after an exact comparison, our Anau ox ranges itself between
Bos namadicus and Bos primigenius; while the enamel plications are still more
manifold than in Bos taurus macroceros of Nepal, which, in comparison with the
early Egyptian long-horned cattle, has very numerous plications.

Bos taurus macroceros Duerst. (Plate 79, fig. 2; plate 81, fig. 2; plate 82, fig. 1; plate 83, fig. 3; map,
plate 85.)

In the layers of the North Kurgan of Anau, beginning at −15 feet below
the level of the plain and extending to the top of the hill, we find numerous
bones of domestic cattle. These bones are found far more frequently than those
of the other animals and are easily distinguishable by their lightness and highly
porous character. In addition, the color of these bones is a light yellowish-brown,
while that of the bones of the wild bull is a darker brown.

To determine the origin of the domestic cattle, we must try, first, to recognize
the breed and size; second, to see whether there is any connection between them
and the wild cattle of the strata below −15 feet; and third, to determine the
probable distribution of these animals over the neighboring parts of Asia.

The Breed and Size of the Domestic Cattle of Anau.

In various earlier publications, I have several times expressed the opinion
that the short-horned cattle of the turbary man of Europe (Bos brachyceros
Rütimeyer), which seemed to have been imported from Asia, were the oldest
cattle of the world, although descended from a long-horned wild species, the
Bos namadicus. It seems, however, that the bones of Anau tend to contradict
this opinion. The bones of the cattle in the layers from −15 feet to +25 feet
show no concordance with those of Bos brachyceros. They are all distinctly
larger in size and the few remains of horn-cores indicate a long-horned animal.

We will now first compare the dimensions of these bones with those of other
prehistoric cattle, especially with those of the mummified skeletons of a sacred
bull, Apis, of the old Egyptian tombs of Sakkarah, now in the Museum of Natu-
ral History at Paris, and with those of Bos taurus brachyceros Rütimeyer, from
the excavations of Schlossberg, near Burg (Brandenburg), and several localities
of Bohemia.

But we shall see that it is not possible that these marked differences were
only those of sex or individuality. I begin with the extremity bones.

Several fragments of scapulæ were among the bones from the kurgan, but
only two fragments of distal ends of this bone are sufficiently preserved to serve
for measurements. The dimensions given in the table on pp. 366-368 show an
exact concordance in size between the fragments from the +17-foot layer and the
scapula of the Apis bull; the fragment from the +26-foot layer being smaller.