Luristan bronze by most families. Taking the groups in what is now generally considered to be their broad chronological sequence, the first are the "animal finials", with two rampant confronted animals, generally a pair of large-horned ibex (or goats or mouflon sheep) or felines, facing each other with a central tube or open rings (formed at the junctions of their front and hind feet) between them. The bezoar ibex ("capra aegagrus aegagrusis"), the local wild species of goat or ibex, was already domesticated millennia before; it has large curved horns with knobbly ribs. Compared to later types, the animals are more naturalistic,
European mouflon in the absence of natural predators. Thus the mouflon population in the recently settled wolf regions of Lusatia was wiped out within a short period of time, while populations of wild boar and their main prey, deer, were barely affected. Whether this observation will apply in other areas, will only be possible to verify as wolves expand their territory in Central Europe. The resettlement of lynxes in the Harz Mountains, in combination with hard winters, has also led to a decline in the mouflon population. Within the hunting community it was noted that the mouflon which were introduced in 1903