Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Aurochs: The Once and Future King of Cattle

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

Tens of thousands of years ago, early paleolithic humans painted on cave walls things that were important to them and with which their entire lives revolved. One of the most prominent images which have been preserved on countless cave walls is an animal that looks like an enormous bull. That animal has gone extinct, but while it was alive, it played an important role in the development of humanity, and its genetic descendants still play an important role today.  Learn more about the aurochs on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Darcy Adams Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Search Past Episodes at fathom.fm Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/everything-everywhere-daily-podcast/ Everything Everywhere is an Airwave Media podcast." or "Everything Everywhere is part of the Airwave Media podcast network Please contact [e-mail] to advertise on Everything Everywhere. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tens of thousands of years ago, early Paleolithic humans painted on cave walls the things that were most important to them and with which their entire lives revolved. One of the most prominent images which have been preserved are animals that look like an enormous bull. That animal has gone extinct, but while it was alive, it played an important role in the development of humanity, and its genetic descendants still play an important role today. Learn more about the oryx, the once and future king of cattle, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night.

And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. The Oryx were basically an ancient species of giant cattle. They weren't as big as an elephant, but definitely bigger. than modern cattle. The oryx existed alongside humans for most of humanity's existence. The earliest evidence of humans and oryx are oric bones found in Israel, which have cut marks on them made by human tools. These bones date back 120,000 years. And if you go and look at some of the very earliest human artwork, you'll find images of oryx. In fact, you'll probably find as many

images of oryx by early humans as you will of any other animal. The famous cave paintings in Chauvet and Los Coe in France, both show images of oryx on the walls. These date back as far as 36,000 years. And a recent discovery of a limestone carving in France depicts an oryx, and that's been dated back to 38,000 years ago. The cave paintings of Altamira Spain date back about as far, and also depict Aurex as well as other large herbivores. However, the Aurex wasn't just a Paleolithic animal. Images of Aurex are found on rock art near the Nile River that date back about 15 to 16,000 years. And these are the oldest rock carvings that have been found in Africa. Images were also found in Egyptian tombs dating back about 3 to 4,000 years. Likewise, in the Indus Valley civilization in India, official seals used to sign documents

were found with images of oryx on them. As we move closer to the present, we find yet more examples of oryx. Julius Caesar spoke of wild oryx in his commentaries, which were then locally known as Uri, which he wrote about while he was in Gaul. He said, quote, those animals which are Uri, they are a little, below the elephant in size and of the appearance, color, and shape of a bull. Their strength and speed are extraordinary. They spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied. These, the Germans, take with much pains, into pits, and kill them. The young men harder themselves with this exercise,

and practice themselves in this sort of hunting, and those who have slain the greatest number of them, having produced the horns in public, to serve as evidence, receive great praise." There were also reports of Romans capturing wild orcs and using them in gladitorial fights. As late as the year 1200, the German epic poem Der Nibelungenlid mentions a hero named Sigurd who kills four oryx. So, what's the deal with these animals? What were they like? And why were they so important? And where are they now? To start with, as Caesar mentioned, oryx were huge, far larger than any other breed of cattle that exists today. They were also meaner and stronger as well. But perhaps her most defining characteristic was

that are very large and tall set of horns. Horns that could grow as long as 80 centimeters or 31 inches. Males were larger and had of more blackish color, whereas females were smaller with a reddish-brown color. There were three subspecies of oryx, one in Eurasia, one in India, and one in North Africa. The North African subspecies were the first to go extinct several thousand years ago. This was probably due to the Sahara grasslands becoming a desert, which I covered in a previous episode. So what relevance did these big cows, which is basically what they were, have to humans? Before the rise of agriculture, humans were often referred to as hunter-gatherers. That term kind of implies that they were equal parts hunting and equal parts gathering.

In reality, there was a lot more hunting than there was gathering, and this was the case for several reasons. First was the fact that edible plants were often only available a few weeks out of each year. Outside of that window, there weren't many options. and the second was just a matter of physics. Hunting very large animals was often the most efficient way to get calories. A single large animal could be hunted in a day or less and provide enough food for a small tribe to last for a week or two. By far, the most sought after animals to hunt were large herbivores.

Almost all the cave paintings of animals are of large herbivores, deer, antelope, woolly rhinoceruses, mammoths, and of course, oryx. Herbivores were not only easier and safer to hunt, but the meat was also much cleaner than a carnivorous animal, such as a tiger or a bear. So, the reason why oryx were appearing on cave walls and on rock carvings is that the oryx was an incredibly vital animal to early hunting humans. However, that isn't the full story. Eventually, humans shifted from being hunter-gatherers and became more sedentary. In addition to the domestication of crops for agriculture, around the same time, people began domesticating animals. And one of the first animals which was domesticated was the

oryx. The oryx were believed to have been domesticated in two different locations, independently, around 10 to 11,000 years ago. One of the domestication events occurred in the Indus Valley. This occurred with the Indus subspecies which existed in that region. The other domestication event occurred in what is today northern Iran or southeastern Turkey. This domestication was of the Eurasian oryx. These first domesticated oryx may have been quasi-hunted animals where they were kept in a limited area but then hunted like wild oryx. But over a period of about 2,000 years, the bones of these domesticated oryx became smaller,

and they slowly became the domesticated species of cattle that we know today. And yes, almost all cattle breeds today are offshoots and descendants of domesticated oryx thousands of years ago. As domesticated cattle breeds developed, plenty of wild orcs were still roaming around. Many of them ended up breeding with domesticated cattle, causing insertions of wild oryx genetics into domesticated populations over the course of thousands of years. The new domesticated cattle breeds were smaller and much more docile than the wild oryx.

Over in India, their domesticated orcs became what are known as Zibu or humped cattle. These are the traditional Indian cows that you might have seen images of or seen in person if you had the opportunity to go to India. These Zibu cattle eventually spread to places like East Africa and Brazil, as they are better suited to the climate, due to their high tolerance for heat. Over time, both the Indian and Eurasian wild oryx numbers began dwindling. They suffered from several of the same problems, including a loss of habitat due to expansions of agriculture and farmland, overhunting with improved weapons and techniques, and finally, interbreeding with domestic cattle, causing a loss of genetics.

As I mentioned earlier, the North African oryx probably died about 5,000 years ago, although it's possible that some could have survived into the Roman Empire. The last Indian oryx probably died around the year 1,200 in what is today West Bengal. The very last oryx died in 1627 in the Yachtorah Forest of Poland. It was a solitary female who died of natural causes. The oryx were one of the first animals which had any hunting ban placed upon them due to their endangered status. However, by the time it was enacted, it was too late. If you remember back to my episode on the woolly mammoth,

scientists have been working on trying to bring the woolly mammoth back to life now that they have a complete genetic sequence of the animal. And it probably wouldn't surprise you to learn that the same thing is being done with the oryx. The process of bringing back the oryx, however, will be very different than trying to bring back the woolly mammoth. The closest relative to the woolly mammoth is the Asian elephant, which split apart from the mammoth over a million years ago, and there are no descendants of the mammoth alive today. However, the oryx genetics are scattered across the many different breeds of cattle that have developed over the millennia. Instead of trying to manipulate oryx DNA, the plan is just to crossbreed something that will be the approximate size and appearance of the extinct oryx. This was first attempted 100 years ago by two German zoologist brothers by the name of Heinz and Lutz Heck.

They took Spanish fighting bulls and other heritage breeds to create what became known as heck cattle. Since then, other projects have started, including the Polish Foundation for Recreating the Orix and the Taurus Project in the Netherlands, which are working on bringing back something as close as possible to the Orix. And they're actually making progress, and they've created cattle that do bury resemblance to the Orix, but still aren't quite the same size. The breeders are confident that there will be an Orix equivalent type of animal roaming free in Europe within a few years. The Orix have been one of the most important animals over the entire course of humanity. They provided a vital food source for hundreds of thousands of years, and they now serve as the basis for all domesticated cattle in the world today.

One day, in the not too distant future, we might be able to watch them, or something like them, grazing and roaming across the open plains once again. Everything Everywhere Daily is an airwave media podcast. The executive producer is Darcy Adams. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener Boo Earns over at Apple Podcasts in Canada. They write? And I'm done, until tomorrow. Well, Gary, I finally join the club.

I have finished the entire catalog of shows working in reverse. Am I to assume that the membership card and keys to the clubhouse are in the mail? The way you take small little topics that I may never have given a second thought to in my everyday life and condense them into bite-sized morsels from my brain to digest makes the long days of driving, I'm a truck driver, a little less mind-numbing. Also, as a Newfoundlander, I am also thrilled to hear you pronounce my home province, Have you ever been? If not, I highly recommend it, as there are plenty of interesting facts in history that I think would make a great topic for the show, like the tradition of getting screeched, or the Biotic Indians that used to inhabit the province before the Europeans. I love what you're doing, and thanks for keeping me entertained on my long days and even later nights behind the wheel. Well, thank you, Boo Ernst.

I have most definitely been to your fine province, several times, in fact. I have stood at the easternmost point of North America at Cape Spear, and I have traveled to the top of the island, to the very first European settlement in the Americas at Leonsaumetto. I've been to Grossemore National Park, I've stayed in Gander, and I even got up to the forgotten half of your province in Labrador, where I visited Red Bay, Battle Harbor, Nain, Goose Bay, and Torngott Mountains National Park. I even watched a live performance of Come From Away on Broadway with representatives of the provincial tourism board.

And as for the pronunciation, I just remember the rhyme that was told to me on the ferry as I came over from Nova Scotia. Understand Newfoundland. You should receive your keys to the Completionist Club shortly. You will be happy to know that every Friday at the Canadian Clubhouse, we serve codcheeks. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostogram, you two can have it read on the show.