Beasts of the Southern Wild makes a connection between the ancient
aurochs and the impending threat of global climate change.
At the end of the last ice age, the
aurochs was the largest herbivore in Europe.
The assemblage is dominated by species of temperate broad-leaf and mixed forests, such as elk, red deer,
aurochs, wild boar and beaver (Paaver 1965, 437 f.).
Unfortunately, this kind of disappearance from history by the
aurochs is common.
We learn where cows come from historically and evolutionarily (extinct
Aurochs).
But Britain is missing the heavy-duty herbivores like
aurochs (the ancestor of domestic cows) and wild horses that can help Turn to Page 32 From Page 31 halt succession.
(Vera and Buissink, 2007: 24) The former steppe-tundra that these great mammals had occupied was colonised by large ungulates who had survived the Ice Age in more southern parts of Europe, like red deer, roe deer, elk, wild boar, wisent,
aurochs and tarpan (the successor of the Przewalski horse).
And excited experts have also discovered tracks made by ancient animals, and frozen in time for millennia, such as red deer, wild boar, crane - and
aurochs.
Its Upper Paleolithic art--largely composed of visual imagery of animals (such as horses, deer, and
aurochs, who were ancestors of the wild ox)--is a reminder of hunter-gatherer communities who probably took refuge in the cave for shelter as well as for socio-religious practices.
The most important thing we know about them is that they were originally created and maintained by vast herds of grazing mammals, including wisent (European bison),
aurochs (ancestral cattle) and horses.
The
aurochs, stags, and horses on the walls at Lascaux were painted to be seen in the flickering torchlight, and would have shimmered with apparent movement.
(12.) For example, it might be possible to breed cattle in a conventional manner to recapture some of the characteristics and functions of
aurochs. The fruits of such a breeding program would not be
aurochs per se, but ecologically functional approximations of
aurochs.