Talk:Aurochs

Geography Discussion

 * Ok -- I think it has been mentioned above that Aurochs might be the correct name. BUT DAMMIT, DON'T EVEN START WITH THE MASURIA IS PRUSSIA STUFF. IN 1627 IT WAS BLOODY POLAND, ALL RIGHT??? I ACTUALLY READ THE STUFF ON THREE WEBSITES. THE SOURCE IS FROM MASURIA, BUT THE AUTHOR IS A MEMBER OF THE POLISH COURT, TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED IN POLAND. THE KING OF POLAND RESERVED THE RIGHT TO BE SOLE HUNTER OF THE AUROCHS. THE AUROCHS ONLY LIVED IN THE POLISH ROYAL FOREST. IT WAS NOT IN PRUSSIA AT THE TIME THE LAST AUROCHS WAS KILLED, NOR FOR AT LEAST A COUPLE OF CENTURIES BEFORE. Please, for my sanity, stop trying to assert that all of northern central Europe is, was, and always has been Prussia. It isn't, wasn't, and has at times been. That's the best you can prove. Boundaries change.  JHK
 * You did not read it all. When you do, you can ask the tu, Munich, I stated what they have stated Masuren, and not Masovia or Masovien. That is why I asked the question on /talk. user:H.J.
 * I think you missed the point... sjc
 * Gee, I dunno, user:H.J.. Maybe because the whole bloody article is written in German?  In English it is always written Masovia.  In 1627, Masovia or Masuren or whatever it is in whatever language you like, WAS IN POLAND.  The Aurochs died in the Polish King's private hunting grounds -- were they in Prussia?  I think not.JHK
 * Time for a cup of tea, JHK? Or something a little stronger? :-) sjc
 * Sorry, Masuren or Masurenland , Masurische Seen Platte (English Masovia) always has been and is in southern part of Prussia, to the north of Masovia. user:H.J.
 * Let me get this straight, user:H.J....you are saying here, absolutely, in front of God (or gods or any other appropriate NPOV deity or lack thereof) and all your fellow Wikipedians, that Masovia or, in German Masuren, has NEVER been within the official borders of the Kingdom (or any other type of government in its history) of Poland? Think carefully -- what credibility you have left depends upon your answer...JHK
 * JHK, you do not show that you have contacted the website to clear if they meant Masovia, while they state Masuren.

user:H.J.
 * The link is wrong. The hunting reserve where the last aurochs was killed was just outside Warsaw. The royal forest of Jaktorów to be precise. Very much in Masovia. -- Paul Drye
 * To Paul Drye If it was just outside of Warsaw, it is correct to say Masovia. Where did you read this ? Please let me know. Thank you user:H.J.
 * I found it in a few places on the web. For some reason most of them are in French, but an English one is:

http://www.aristotle.net/~swarmack/aurohist.html If you can read French, one of the better ones is: http://www.gramat-parc-animalier.com/fiches/domestique/aurochs.htm

--Paul Drye


 * Thanks,Paul, I just found it on aristotle. It says that the last aurochs died of natural cause user:H.J.
 * Yes, there seems to be a split of opinion as to whether the last one was shot or just died. I tend to believe the paper on Aristotle, as it seems quite well researched, but I'm trying to find a few more sources in the hopes of clearing it up. -- Paul Drye


 * Remember... when all seems bad, remember that everything2's primary writeup on Aurochs ( http://www.everything2.com/?node=aurochs ) is about Magic: The Gathering! But it's interesting to note that Webster 1913 seemed to believe Aurochs were ' nearly exinct'...
 * Thank you, both of you, I had heard about the 're-creation' (early zoology) and continuation of the Aurochs.

I am glad that you pointed me to the everything2 site, especially that my best search engine sofar http://www.webtop.com just went down the drain. user:H.J.

Small clarification here, and an apology for yelling. When I revised the Auroch entry, I revised it after reading that the last Aurochs was killed in Masovia. Didn't even notice that the original entry had the wrong place altogether. It didn't occur to me at the time that the usual "it was in Prussia" discussion had been sidetracked by the misinformation that this happened in an entirely different province -- one that is in Prussia -- than the one I was talking about, which is in Poland. Apologies to Sensible Wikipedians like Paul Drye for jumping at shadows...JHK

Cave Paintings
Ancient cave dwellings show rock paintings and carvings of magical strength connected with the aurochs.

I happen to agree with this. However, I can't figure out how we "paint or carve magical strength". We need to rephrase this and put it back. Thanks.


 * It sounds like a right load of old Aurochs to me too. I will see whether we can't paint or carve this magically into shape... sjc

In these and many other early art-works, the aurochs are attributed with possessing magical qualities.

How the heck are we supposed to infer this from cave paintings? Maybe the artists meant to attribute the aurochs with being very organized, or attractively shaped, or well worth the effort of barbecuing.

They are certainly not worth barbecuing: they have been in the freezer far too long. Frankly, my take is this: they are painted ergo they are worthy of representation. If they are merely attributed (etc), this covers most of the bases since we don't need to get into long and tedious discussions about the role of the palaeolithic hunter/magician nor the converse view that the paintings were nothing to do with magic whatsoever but were in fact the palaeolithic equivalent of car mags, depicting things that men like looking at in their spare time. sjc


 * Well, long, but not everyone would find them "tedious", though I don't mean to have the conversation here. It's just that people can be pretty blithe about saying what art from other cultures means, with paleolithic art a great example of this. Have a good on:Does my edit of this cave paintings passage satisfy the reasonable objections? Wetman 05:42, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The Bison Image Again
Alan -- All of the websites I checked pretty uniformly said the Aurochs looked like the Lascaux cave paintings. The modern re-creation also looks like that. I think the picture from the 1911 source might be wrong -- it looks more like pictures of the Wisent to me. Would it be ok to remove it? JHK


 * Yes, the picture I found is not Bos primigenius, it is Bison bonasus.
 * Unfortunately, Webster's 1911 referred to Bison bonasus as the aurochs. It looks like the more up-to-date usage is that aurochs is Bos primigenius, and wisent is Bison bonasus. Does that sound right? --Alan Millar
 * That's what I found...JHK

That picture looks more like a bison than the beasties that are in the cave paintings and in the Minoan bull-vaulting paintings -- are you sure it's an aurochs? -- Marj Tiefert 13:35 Jul 31, 2002 (PDT)
 * Yep, that picture is a bison. Fred Bauder
 * Correct. The illustration from Webster we've been showing here at Aurochs is an American, not even "Lithianian", bison. I'm sitting with Simon Schama, Landscape and Memory under my elbow, the part about the royal bison of Bialowieza, and a painting by Roeland Savary illustrating it.Wetman 14:58, 17 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Aurochs interest
Dear all, I appreciate your interest in aurochs, because for many years I studied this bovine species; its history, morphology and ecology were all part of my study. That is why I can inform you that aurochs and European bison are two different bovine species. The first one is extinct, the other is still alive. The last aurochs lived in the Forest of Jaktorów, a royal forest near Warsaw, in the Province of Masovia (Poland). Masuria, in the Northeast of Poland, formerly was Prussian area, afterwards conquered by the Germans and nowadays Polish. If you have any further questions, don't hesitate about asking me. --Cheers, Cis — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.93.220.11 (talk) 19:17, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

Hi Paul, The site I gave is partly in Dutch and partly in English. I have changed the introduction path. The (partial) English text is the following:

'This site provides information about the research into the history, morphology and ecology of the aurochs (Bos primigenius) by Cis van Vuure. After a many years’ research, the writing started in April 1998 and ended in April 2000. Eventually in 2003, we managed to publish this research in the form of a nice, illustrated (Dutch) book. Finally we found Pensoft Publishers willing to publish the English version, entitled ‘Retracing the aurochs – history, morphology and ecology of an extinct wild ox’. Halfway this year the book will be available. If you are interested in it and want to be put on the mailing list, please send me an email'.

This is not a commercial book, at least not for me: I spent so much money and effort that I shall never be compensated completely for it. This book tells the comprehensive story about all aspects of the aurochs and its relatives, and also of Heck cattle, the so-called bred-back aurochs. This was the only way to research and unmask all those mysteries around the aurochs.

--Best wishes, Cis — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cis enwiki (talk • contribs) 14:00, 2005 May 18 (UTC)

Taxonomy confusion
In this article I see that aurochs is Bos primigenius, but I have seen elsewhere that the aurochs has the scientific name Bos taurus primigenius.

Are both Bos primigenius and Bos taurus primigenius correct scientific names for the aurochs? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gyrkin (talk • contribs) 21:22, 2017 June 8 (UTC)

Extincion year
According to: Boev, Z., 2021. Last Aurochs (Bos primigenius Bojanus, 1827) have survived in Bulgaria. — Lynx (Prague), 52: 139—142, the information that the aurox was extinct by 1627 might be incorrect. 31.182.220.91 (talk) 21:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Here's the paper: While interesting, that's sure one scrappy horn-core. Would probably help to get some DNA analysis of it, seems a bit flimsy that it couldn't be from some cattle type (yes, they rule out a local breed based on morphology, but you never know what could have been brought there). FunkMonk (talk) 22:06, 10 May 2024 (UTC)