The Prehistory of Upper Pleistocene and Recent Cattle. Part I: East Mediterranean, with Reference to North-West Europe

Abstract

There is a considerable literature concerning the prehistory and palaeontology of cattle, both at the infra- and inter-species levels. In spite of the wealth of published material, however, deficiencies remain. The majority of the publications concern small areas of study, and few general syntheses are available; the few syntheses which do exist, such as those of Reed (1961) and Zeuner (1963) do not do justice to the information at present available. Most of the detailed work is concentrated in North-West Europe, and developments in many fields, particularly those of evolutionary genetics and economic prehistory, have rendered obsolete many of the premises underlying published hypotheses. This is true for nearly all discussions of animals in their relationships with prehistoric man, but a general reassessment of the situation is available (Higgs and Jarman, 1969) while Payne (1969) has treated the sheep-goat group in particular. The work concerning cattle may conveniently be divided into two overlapping groups. First there are those studies which are primarily concerned with palaeontological considerations, with the description of specimens from a taxonomic and ecological point of view. The second group comprises investigations into the relationship between man and cattle and because of the prevailing climate of thought has concentrated overwhelmingly on the domestication of cattle and their subsequent exploitation. Thus the ‘Man and Cattle’ Symposium (Mourant and Zeuner, 1963) contains papers concerned with the history of the relationship from the Neolithic to the present day. Mesolithic and Pleistocene cattle are not discussed in any detail, and are only mentioned as a standard of comparison by which changes may be recognized. This assessment of the relative potential importance of the evidence is the product of the preferred hypothesis of the time, and before discussing the evidence offered for the domestication of cattle and their later history, it is important to understand the formative influence of the theoretical framework underlying the data.