 |
The earliest settlers arrived in the Shetland Islands about 5,000 years ago during the Neolithic Age from the British mainland. The origins of the first cattle are unclear and await further scientific analysis, however in the light of recent archaeological investigations in Orkney and Shetland it now seems likely that they are descended from the aurochs, wild cattle which roamed the forests of Britain and Europe after the last Ice Age. |
|
Neolithic man may well have been capturing young aurochs which were tamed as best they could – no mean feat as aurochs were renowned in historic times for their ferocity and size. Archaeological remains indicate they would have stood shoulder to shoulder with the modern Charollais, originally from France but now the most numerous of the very large beef breeds on British farms. |
 |
|
|
Remains found in both Orkney and Shetland from the Neolithic period indicate a very large animal indeed. Therefore, perhaps, the first cattle of Orkney and Shetland were aurochs calves carried over the Pentland Firth from the Scottish mainland, trussed up in the bottom of a wicker-framed skin-clad boat, possibly similar to the Irish curragh in style though considerable longer. |
These Neolithic cattle bones reveal interesting features of early domestication in that some clearly suffered arthritis in their joints. Were they just used as draught animals? Were they kept in cramped conditions throughout the winter? Also the teeth show many incremental light and dark ridges denoting periods of poor health: evidence, it is believed, that they lived through regular periods of great hardship – doubtless the winters. These ridges could help explain why, as time passes, the cattle bones get smaller and smaller. |
Quite simply, it is thought these early inhabitants could not feed their stock well enough through the winters and so two things happened: the bigger animals which needed more fodder died off during the lean times, and the people began to favour the smaller more manageable types which survived. By the Bronze Age there appear to be two types of cattle remains – larger and smaller animals. Clearly, if a theory proposed by Julie Bond of Bradford University, is correct, size selection took a long time to complete. |
|
