section_path: Evolution/Phylogeny
section_name: Phylogeny
paragraph_text: Phylogeny
  
  Cattle have played a key role in human history, having been domesticated since at least the early neolithic age. Archaeozoological and genetic data indicate that cattle were first domesticated from wild aurochs (Bos primigenius) approximately 10,500 years ago. There were two major areas of domestication: one in central Anatolia, the Levant and Western Iran, giving rise to the taurine line, and a second in the area that is now Pakistan, resulting in the indicine line. Modern mitochondrial DNA variation indicates the taurine line may have arisen from as few as 80 aurochs tamed in the upper reaches of Mesopotamia near the villages of Çayönü Tepesi in what is now southeastern Turkey, and Dja'de el-Mughara in what is now northern Syria.
  
  Although European cattle are largely descended from the taurine lineage, gene flow from African cattle (partially of indicine origin) contributed substantial genomic components to both southern European cattle breeds and their New World descendants. A study on 134 breeds showed that modern taurine cattle originated from Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australia, and Europe. Some researchers have suggested that African taurine cattle are derived from a third independent domestication from the North African aurochs. Whether there have been two or three domestications, European, African, and Asian cattle share much of their genomes both through their species ancestry and through repeated migrations of livestock and genetic material between species, as shown in the diagram.