Their dung can be used as fertilizer, mixed with mud for building mud huts, or burned as fuel.
Domesticated cattle were probably used for the production of milk, meat and for draught power from the start of their symbiotic relationship with humans, but even as early as the Stone Age cattle also had a dominant role in religion.
The two main groups of domesticated cattle, Bos Taurus (European) and B. indicus (India and Africa.
The wild ancestor of domestic cattle was Bos primigenius, the urus or aurochs, which became extinct in Poland in 1627.
Domesticated hump-backed cattle (B indices, “Zebu”) existed in Mesopotamia by 4500 B.C. Domesticated long-horned cattle in Egypt by about 4000 B.C; both of these appear on pottery and friezes of the period.
Bos Indicus was introduce into Africa through Egypt or the African east coast. Several breeds of domesticated cattle were known by 2500 B.C. An interesting frieze from Ur, dating from 3000 B.C, shows that cows were then milked from the rear.
According to the experts, this further evidence that the domestication of sheep that of cattle. About this same time the fattening of cattle by forced feeding was practiced in Egypt.
Neolithic people entered central India in a series of waves from northeastern Iran prior to 2200 BC. They had herds of Bos indicus.
Domesticated cattle survived in increasingly large numbers in deforested areas where the land had been converted to grassland.
Domestication of cattle
