SKULLS OP 0\BX FROM NEWSTEAD. 281 



possession of tlie Anau-li was a dwai-fed descenrlant of an Asiatic 

 variety of Bos jjrimigenius *. 



It is doubtless possible that a small breed may have been 

 formed out of the huge Urus by the ISTeoliths immediately after 

 they reached Europe, but the evidence, so far as it goes, suggests 

 that the Neoliths brought the "Celtic" Shorthorn with them 

 from Central Asia. 



Though in Britain the Urus was hunted by the Neoliths — 

 evidence of this we have in the Urus skull from Burwell Fen, 

 near Cambridge, with the frontals pierced by a Neolithic flint 

 implement — thei-e is no evidence that Bos primigenius was once 

 domesticated in Britain or that the Neoliths allowed their 

 domestic cattle to breed with young wild bulls. 



But on the Continent the Urus was apparently domesticated at 

 a comparatively early period and crossed with the small breed 

 originally brought from Central Asia. Hence it may be said 

 that up to at least the Bronze age the majority of the domestic 

 cattle in Europe were the descendants of Bos primigenius — some 

 being nearly pure descendants of the imported " Celtic " Short- 

 horn breed, while others were pure or nearly pure descendants 

 of the indigenous wild Urus (Bos taurtis jjrimige^iitis). 



There is no evidence that there existed in Europe or in Central 

 Asia a variety of Bos j)rimigeniiis with the occiput deeply notched 

 and otherwise resembling the one represented in text-fig. 84. 

 Neither is there any evidence that in Bos namadicus — the Urus 

 of India — the occiput was deeply notched or characterized by an 

 excavated intercornual lidge. The only extinct form to which 

 the Newstead skull represented in text-figs. 84 and 86 bears any 

 marked resemblance is Bos acuiifrons of the Pliocene Siwaliks. 

 It has been suggested that the Newstead skull with a deep mesial 

 semicircular depression above the occipital crest belonged to a 

 hybrid between an Ox and a Bison, but this view is not supported 

 by the skulls of Ox-Bison hybiids. Moreover, in its occiput and 

 premaxillfe this Newstead skull (text- figs. 84 & 86) very closely 

 agi-ees with the skull of a Cadzow Ox (text-fig. 87) in the Royal 

 Scottish Museum. It may hence in the meantime be assumed 

 that some of the cattle in the south of Scotland during the 

 Roman occupation were descended from an Indian race allied to 

 Bos acutifrons. 



Of the Newstead cattle with horns curving backwards and down- 

 wards (text-fig. 82) it need only be said that they seem to be more 

 intimately related to Bos namadicus than to Bos prmiigeniiis. 



The polled Newstead cattle represent two distinct types. Some 

 had a neai^ly flat forehead, a nearly straight " intei-cornual " ridge, 

 and a square-shaped occiput; in others the forehead was very 

 uneven and ended in a pronounced mesial prominence which 

 projected upwards and forwards (text-fig. 77). The Newstead 



* The small Ox of Aiiau is probably now represented in Asia bj' the long-browed 

 Zebus characterized by small horns of the Bos longifrons type. 



