Where do cows come from? [Quick Questions: a series by @awesomianist]

Here's a tricky question that will certainly make man think about mankind.

Have you ever wondered "What the heck was the first guy who tasted cow milk was thinking?"
Sure, milk is a staple of modern society. It's been a food source (we need 'em calcium, guys) since our memory recalls. to get them, we feed grass to a car-sized animal that wont do well in the wild in return we squeeze their udder for some white liquids.
But doesn't that make one ponder, how it started? who was that first idiot?
Was he thinking "screw it"? was it an attempt at some messed up fantasy? A risk taken out desperation perhaps?

After some researching, I'd say its none of the above.
I would guess that what most probably went on in his head goes along the line of "hmm, exactly what i wanted", or whatever our stone-age ancestors think after a successful experiment.

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Surprisingly, by the time our ancestors created (you heard that right) the first milk-able cow, our ancestors have been milking sheep and goats for millenniums, milking a cow is just another step-up.
The challenge however, and why cows come much later than goats and sheep, is that cows back then are much different that the mooing dumb beast that it is now, we have it so easy. What our ancestors had back then was something else entirely.

_{Goats and Sheep, not a care in the world | Source: ilvibonese.it}

Before cows, breeding small grass eating livestock like sheep and goats was a norm to stone-age men. We have already figured out the domestication of goats and sheep for thousands of years before cows.
They were tame (and maybe dumb enough, seriously, goats and sheep are dumb) to be kept near families and kids, they feed on any green thing which is found everywhere, and holy moly do they eat EVERYTHING!!!! They have milk and woolly hair which can be woven into fabric and felt.
When in a pinch or on a good day, they can be slaughtered and sliced into meat, as well as skinned for leather. The bones can made made into tools and weapons. These small sized animals really have low maintenance and can move around as their owners back then were nomads.
Having sheep or goats back then was like keeping boxes full of food and materials essential for survival.

_{Sketch of Men and Dogs | Drawing by Dan Burr}
It is at around this time as well that dogs start to warm up to mankind. Yes, Humans did not domesticate dogs but the other way around. although this is an entirely different story for another post.
So at around this time dogs have been already around humans to help as shepherds.

According to archaeological and genetic evidence, by around the time the first "cows" were domesticated, mankind have been very privy to how milk works and why having a bunch of moving breathing flesh makes sense.
They also know that all mammals one way or another has milk. Mothers, sheep, goats, dogs all feed milk to their young.
So, even without killing livestock, humans can benefit from them while keeping them alive.

Cows however, back in the days, have not existed yet. yes, there were no cows as we recognize them back in 10 thousand BC.

"All cattle are descended from as few as 80 animals that were domesticated from wild ox in the Near East some 10,500 years ago, according to a new genetic study in collaboration between CNRS and National Museum of Natural History in France, the University of Mainz in Germany, and UCL in the UK.

Research Source

I don't think the term "wild ox" do them justice. Just for a context, this is what "cows" back then looked like.

The name for them is Aurochs, taken from the Germanic name "urochs". And these monsters are terrifying! Giants, bad-tempered, not to be messed with, now long extinct.

Attempts to domesticate these monsters are done by what i imagine are some of our ancestors who have balls so huge they need prehistoric wheelbarrows to carry it around.
Seriosly, just look at that! put that in a cage?? really? after you please I'm NOT doing that!

Cows are a human engineered species over the course of who knows how long, centuries at least.. Where these stoneage cowboys risk getting spiked by horns bigger than a spear and being stepped on by a car sized thing until they manage to artificially breed the meanness out of them. The process also had a side effect of breeding them smaller over time. Perhaps the price of a more tame cow. Archeological evidence puts Aurochs at about almost 2 meters by height!!!

Perhaps done over centuries, our ancestors attempted the process of early animal modification by killing angry cows for dinner and letting the (relatively) dumber ones to breed and have dumb cow kids and dumber grandkids.
Goats and sheeps are dumb, thank goodness for that because they are easy to keep around. And so our ancestors realize to that have a dumb-down version of these monsters are a good thing for mankind.

This is, of course, strictly speaking, not nature running it's course. Humans determined which cow genes get transfered to the later generation, and which to wipe out.
Our ancestors literally genetically enginered the modern day cows to breed them for milk and meat. Milking cow was not a spontaneous discovery, it was a careful attempt over long periods by the wisest (and the ballsiest) of our ancestors.

Love drinking milk? Thank a caveman!

P.S. Thank you for reading it all the way through. This question, along with some others, have been on my mind for quite some time, to the point i did a research about it. I'm thinking if running a series of random informational posts whose question might pop into our heads every once in a blue moon. Do you like it? should i do more? Let me know in the comments!!

I'm @awesomianist

Stay Awesome!