Food & agriculture · c. 8,000 BCE

Cattle

The wild aurochs was tamed into cattle, later the engine of ploughing across Eurasia.

Taurine cattle descend from a small founder population of aurochs in the Near East around 8000 BCE, and zebu were separately domesticated in the Indus region. Oxen became the main source of farm traction for the next 9,000 years.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 1

Livestock domestication 8500 BCE

What it led to 4

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

World population over a million years Latest: 6.27k million people (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, table 'Total World Population' (Kremer series); Kremer 1993, Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990, QJE 108(3)

World GDP over a million years Latest: 41k billion 1990 international $ (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, Estimating World GDP, One Million B.C. - Present; Wikipedia: Gross world product (DeLong table, cross-check)