.1923. ScHARFF— On the Origin of the Irish Cattle. 75 



race of domestic cattle. And he argued that this breed 

 must have originated in Asia, and have been domesticated 

 there long before the commencement of the culture of the 

 Babylonians.' Prof. Keller, who was able to identify th.s 

 breed of ox on many of the ancient monuments, pleaded in 

 favour of its African origin.- The excavations conducted 

 under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution of Washington 

 at Anau in Turkestan, however, enabled Duerst to resume 

 his investigations into the origin of our small race of cattle. 

 In the lowest deposits, all the bones of oxen were those of 

 a wild species apparently Bos namadicus of Falconer and 

 Cautle3\. which is an extinct Asiatic wild ox. It was only 

 in the upper layers that domestic cattle bones made their 

 appearance. These belonged to a larger breed than Bos 

 hrachyceros, and were long-horned. The same breed lived 

 in Egypt, but there is evidence for the belief that it gradually 

 diminished in size. It was also known in Mesopotamia 

 during Babvlonian times, about 4,000-5,000 B.C. Chinese 

 records place the arrival in China of the long-horned ox in 

 the year 3468 B.C. It has been ascertained at Anau that 

 the earliest remains of the domestic ong-horned cattle 

 appeared approximately in the year 8000 B.C. Already 

 2,900 years later there are dist net evidences in th^ Anau 

 deposits that the large-homed breed had not only become 

 smaller in size, but that its horns had diminished in length. 

 It had, in fact, become metamorphosed into a short-homed 

 race which cannot be distinguished from the European 

 Bos taiirus hrachyceros or longifrons. Whether this di- 

 minution in size was due to insufficient nourishment, the 

 pairing in an immature condition, or to changes in the 

 cHmatic conditions, or to a combination of these causes, 

 adverse influences no doubt acted on the old breed in the 

 production of the new one. It was not in Turkestan alone 

 that the originally large and stately ox was transformed 

 into the stunted short-homed form. A similar change 

 took place in Mesopotamia. Dr. Duerst therefore expresses 



1 Duerst, J. U, i I)ie Kinder von Babylonien. Assyiien .unci Egyptea 

 und ihr Zusammenhang mit den Rindern der alten Welt. Zurich, 1899. 



2 Keller, C. : Die Abstammung der alteren Haustiere. Zuach, 1902, 



