Zebu migrations

Ceremonial "buckle"? from Bactria, end of the 3rd mill. BC. Does it depict an Indian Zebu (top) and a Eurasian Auroch (bottom)? Or is this Zebu on both sides?

Geneticists from Trinity college in Dublin, sequenced 67 ancient genomes from both wild and domestic cattle sampled from across eight millennia...

Sequencing Near Eastern wild cattle, or aurochs, allowed the team to unravel the domestication process of this most formidable of beasts...

Genetic similarity to the early domestic cattle of Anatolia concurs with a primary origin in that region. However different local wild populations also made significant additional genetic contributions to herds in Southeast Europe and southern Levant...

These earliest domestic cattle are Bos Taurus. 

They had no ancestry from Bos Indicus, or zebu – herds that originate separately further to the east in the Indus Valley...And which we find depicted all over Indus Valley Civilisation pottery. 

I wrote about the use of Zebu as solar calendar marker in Indus Valley Civilisation in my post "Kharif and Rabi season".

By the way, Indus Valley people knew about aurochs too. They are the so called "unicorns" 🙂depicted on the Indus Valley Civilisation seals, like this one

Anyway, during the early 3rd millennium BC we see depictions of the zebu cattle on Jiroft culture artefacts, meaning that by then zebu has already reached Iran, possibly Iraq.

I talked about the use of of Zebu as solar calendar marker in in Jiroft culture in my post "Khafajeh vase"

A dramatic change occurred around 4,000 years ago when we detect a widespread, wholesale influx of zebu genetics from the east...Probably linked to a dramatic multi-century climate event that was experienced across the world, referred to as the 4.2 kya climate event. This event caused terrible flooding in some places and terrible droughts in others. It is now believed that it is the drought caused by this event that may also have initiated the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation...

Now cattle don't migrate by themselves. Which means that if huge number of zebus suddenly appeared in Mesopotamia and Anatolia, they were driven there by their owners...

Where did this huge westward migration start? In Indus valley? Or in Iranian river valleys, like Halil river valley, home of the Jiroft culture which suddenly ended around that time?

We can see from the Trinity college study the effect of this migration on the cattle genetics in Western Asia, Europe, North Africa. 

What was the effect of this migration on human genetics in these areas???

Trinity college paper: "Ancient cattle genomics, origins, and rapid turnover in the Fertile Crescent"

5/8/2022. Today I came across this very interesting paper about the spread of Zebu from India westward and how it correlates with the spread of Indian male genes westward too..

"The spread of zebu cattle from South Asia to the East Mediterranean region as a marker of Indo-European population dispersal"

Mas d’Azil goats

This is one of the most amazing artefacts I have ever seen...Carved from a sperm whale tooth, it depicts two climbing Ibex goats...Found in Mas d’Azil cave (Ariège, France), Middle or Late Magdalenian (13000-10000BC), Piette collection, Musée D’Archéologie Nationale...

"What's so exciting about this depiction of two goats?", I can hear you say. "I mean the cave was full of amazing animal depictions carved in bone...Like this horse head for instance"...

Well...Did you notice that under each goat, there are two groups of 6 incised lines? 12 in total...Why would they be there, I wonder...Could they be representing 12, 29 days moons (like this one depicted on moon shaped boar tusk), of the solar year? 

I talked about these early lunisolar calendars in my post "Calendar"

Hmmm, why would the notches be under Ibex goats depicting climbing a mountain??? Well...Ibex goats in Europe ascend to mountain tops during their mating season, which starts in December, and ends in January typically lasting around six weeks... 

I talked about this in my post "Goat".

Right in the middle of the mating periods of Alpine Ibex is Winter Solstice, 21st of December. And the day after the winter solstice is the beginning of the Capricorn (goat) period, which last from December 22 

If you wanted to have a proper calendar, then that calendar has to be lunisolar...It has to have a beginning fixed in a solar year from which you count your moons...Otherwise it begins to slip as 12x29 = 348, 17 days less than the full solar year of 365 days...

Winter solstice is one such event which occurs every year at the same time and which can be, and was, used as a lunisolar calendar anchor...To prevent your calendar from slipping, all you need to do is determine the day of the winter solstice, and then count 12 moons...

How do you do that. Well that is not really that difficult. 

You find a clear flat piece of high ground from which you can observe sunrises and sunsets. The observatory. You stick a pole into the ground to mark the observation spot. Then as the year passes, every morning and every evening you stand next to the observation pole and observe sunrise and sunset. As you are observing the sunrises and sunsets, you notice that the point where sun rises is not the same as the point where sun sets. The sun rises on the left side of the horizon, travels across the sky from left to right and sets at the opposite right side of the horizon. As days pass you realize that the point where the sun rises moves along the horizon. So does the point where the sun sets. You notice that the sunrise point moves during the spring further and further to the left and the sunset point further and further to the right. So the sun needs to travel longer across the sky and the day is longer and longer and hotter and hotter. Then at some point during the summer the sunrise and sunset points start moving in the opposite direction. The sunrise point starts moving to the right and sunset point starts moving to the left. They get closer and closer to each other, so the sun has to travel shorter distance between the sunrise and sunset and the day is shorter and shorter and colder and colder. 

The point when sun rises in the same place 2-3 days in a row is one of the solstices. Winter solstice if your nuts are frozen solid while you are watching the sunrise, summer solstice otherwise (if you are in continental Europe that is)...

Easy...

Then watch the skies carefully during the extra days after "the end of calendar", wait for the next winter solstice, rejoice and throw a wild solstice party, and then start counting moons again...I talked about these "extra days" in my post "The end of time"

But if you are not fussy and don't care about the exact time of the winter solstice, you can always rely on Ibex goats to start climbing to the mountain tops to start their mating season around the same time every year...All you have to do then is count 12 moons from then...

Soooo....This is why I was so excited when I saw this image...Is this a lunisolar calendar with the Ibex as the beginning of the solar year marker???