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Where the wild things are: aurochs and cattle in England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Anthony H. Lynch ,
Julie Hamilton  and
Robert E.M. Hedges
Anthony H. Lynch
Affiliation:
*Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
Julie Hamilton
Affiliation:
*Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
Robert E.M. Hedges
Affiliation:
*Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK
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Abstract

The aurochs was a type of wild cattle not extinct in Europe until the mid-second millennium BC – so they must have co-existed for centuries with the domestic cattle which were to supplant it. Here the authors use stable isotope analysis to show what form that co-existence took: the domestic cattle grazing on the pasture, and the aurochs lurking in the forests and wet places.

Keywords

EuropeNeolithiccattleaurochsstable isotope analysis
Type
Method
Information
Antiquity , Volume 82 , Issue 318 , December 2008 , pp. 1025 - 1039
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2008

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