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Extinction

The Indian aurochs (B. p. namadicus) became extinct during the Indus Valley Civilisation, likely due to habitat loss caused by expanding pastoralism and interbreeding with the domestic zebu. The latest-known remains were dated to 3,800 YBP, making it the first of the three aurochs subspecies to die out.

The African aurochs (B. p. mauritanicus) may have survived until at least to the Roman period, as indicated by fossils found in Buto and Faiyum in the Nile Delta.

The Eurasian aurochs (B. p. primigenius) was present in southern Sweden during the Holocene climatic optimum until at least 7,800 years BP. In Denmark, the first-known local extinction of the aurochs occurred after the sea level rise on the newly formed Danish islands about 8,000–7,500 years BP, and the last documented aurochs lived in southern Jutland around 3,000 years BP. The latest-known aurochs fossil in Great Britain dates to 3,245 years BP, and it was probably extinct by 3,000 years ago.

Excessive hunting began and continued until the aurochs was nearly extinct. The gradual extinction of the aurochs in Central Europe was concurrent with the clearcutting of large forest tracts between the 9th and 12th centuries.

By the 13th century, the aurochs existed only in small numbers in Eastern Europe, and hunting it became a privilege of nobles and later royals. The population in Hungary was declining from at least the 9th century and was extinct in the 13th century.

Findings from subfossil records indicate that wild aurochs might have survived in northwestern Transylvania until the 14th to 16th century, in western Moldavia until probably the early 17th century.

The last-known aurochs herd lived in a marshy woodland in Poland's Jaktorów Forest. It decreased from around 50 individuals in the mid 16th century to four individuals by 1601. The last aurochs cow died in 1627 from natural causes.

A 2021 study argued that the aurochs possibly survived in northeastern Bulgaria until at least the 17th century. A horn-core excavated in 2020 in Sofia was identified as being from an aurochs; the archaeological layer in which it was found was dated to the second half of the 17th or first half of the 18th century, suggesting that Aurochs may have survived in Bulgaria until that date.