The Earliest Cattle Herding

The North African aurochs (Bos primigenius ssp. or Bos primigenius mauritanicus) is a wild endemic species that could live in the Maghreb and the Nile Valley, but not in the Sahara. Genetic mtDNA evidence has indicated that the ancestors of African and Eurasian cattle separated at least 22 000 years ago. As the Egyptian cattle is morphologically different from the Eurasian humpless cattle (Bos taurus) and the zebu (Bos indicus), the earliest African domestic cattle could not originate from either Europe or Asia, but was domesticated independently.

The Eastern Sahara has provided chronological, paleoecological, and linguistic clues to assert domestication of aurochs in the Western Desert, which

Definitely occurred earlier than in the Nile Valley. The earliest domesticated cattle bones are associated with the El Adam variant and are dated from 9500 BP at Nabta Playa, and from 8840 BP at Bir Kiseiba. As these dates are older than those of the earliest cattle in the Near East, they corroborate the independent domestication of cattle in the Eastern Sahara. Second, paleoecological evidence shows that large herbivores, including cattle, could not survive in a wild state in the dry environment and scarce vegetation of the Eastern Sahara without management by herders, who brought their livestock into the desert oases after the summer rains. Third, linguistic arguments show that the Nilo-Saharan language family had root words related to pastoralism and food production in the languages known in the Eastern Sahara and the Sahelian belt. In the Proto-Northern Sudanic language, there are root words referring to cattle pastoralism that go back to 10 000 years ago, and in the Proto-Saharan-Sahelian language, words for pastoralism, as well as cultivation, date from 9000 years ago.

Although domestic cattle existed at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba beginning from the El Adam variant, remains of wild game were more frequent in the archaeological sites, as cattle were rarely killed, whereas wild animals, such as small gazelle, hare, and occasionally large gazelle, were hunted for meat consumption. Cattle could be exploited for milk and blood, which represented almost inexhaustible supplies for proteins. For these reasons, cattle were defined as a ‘walking larder’. Furthermore, they could have another role, not directly related to diet, but to socioeconomic prestige and property, establishing the first social differentiation based on material possessions.