ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the origins of domestic cattle in North Africa, their phenotypes and the dates of their first appearance in the archaeological record. The traditional view on the origins of domestic cattle in Africa is that the animals were brought to the continent across the region of Suez, approximately 6000 years ago, which is about 2000 years later than cattle were first domesticated in western Asia and Greece. The long-horned humpless cattle are said to have spread by diffusion westwards and then south into North and West Africa and the central Sahara, where they are represented in the Tassili rock art The theoretical view claims that cattle first entered Africa through Egypt. Gautier has postulated that the remains of cattle from early Neolithic sites in the Bir Kiseiba region of the eastern Sahara could be from domesticated animals derived from wild Bos primigenius in the Nile valley.
