The distribution of the aurochs progressively contracted during the Holocene due to habitat loss and hunting, with the last known individual dying in the Jaktorów forest in Poland in 1627.

The aurochs is depicted in Paleolithic cave paintings, Neolithic petroglyphs, Ancient Egyptian reliefs and Bronze Age figurines.

One gave rise to the domestic taurine cattle (Bos taurus) in the Fertile Crescent in the Near East that was introduced to Europe via the Balkans and the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

[11] Bos primigenius mauritanicus was coined by Philippe Thomas in 1881 who described fossils found in deposits near Oued Seguen west of Constantine, Algeria.

[17] At least two dwarf subspecies of aurochs developed on Mediterranean islands as a result of sea level changes during the Pleistocene: Calibrations using fossils of 16 Bovidae species indicate that the Bovini tribe evolved about 11.7 million years ago.

Bos acutifrons is considered to be a possible ancestor of the aurochs, of which a fossil skull was excavated in the Sivalik Hills in India that dates to the Early Pleistocene about 2 million years ago.

[28] Fossils of the Indian subspecies (Bos primigenius namadicus) were excavated in alluvial deposits in South India dating to the Middle Pleistocene.

[38] In 1827, Charles Hamilton Smith published an image of an aurochs that was based on an oil painting that he had purchased from a merchant in Augsburg, which is thought to have been made in the early 16th century.

[41] Contemporary reconstructions of the aurochs are based on skeletons and the information derived from contemporaneous artistic depictions and historic descriptions of the animal.

[5] A well-preserved aurochs bone yielded sufficient mitochondrial DNA for a sequence analysis in 2010, which showed that its genome consists of 16,338 base pairs.

[50] Fossil horns attributed to the aurochs were found in Late Pleistocene deposits at an elevation of 3,400 m (11,200 ft) on the eastern margin of the Tibetan plateau close to the Heihe River in Zoigê County that date to about 26,620 ±600 years BP.

[56] Pollen of mostly small shrubs found in fossiliferous sediments with aurochs remains in China indicate that it preferred temperate grassy plains or grasslands bordering woodlands.

[57] In the warm Atlantic period of the Holocene, it was restricted to remaining open country and forest margins, where competition with livestock and humans gradually increased leading to a successive decline of the aurochs.

[58] Dental microwear and mesowear analysis of specimens from the Pleistocene of Britain has found these aurochs had mixed feeding to browsing diets, rather than being strict grazers.

[45] During interglacial periods in the Middle Pleistocene and early Late Pleistocene in Europe, the aurochs occurred alongside other large temperate adapted megafauna species, including the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), Merck's rhinoceros (Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis), the narrow-nosed rhinoceros, (Stephanorhinus hemitoechus) and the Irish elk/giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus).

[62] An aurochs bone with cut marks induced with flint was found in a Middle Paleolithic layer at the Nesher Ramla Homo site in Israel; it was dated to Marine Isotope Stage 5 about 120,000 years ago.

[65] Aurochs bones and skulls found at the settlements of Mureybet, Hallan Çemi and Çayönü indicate that people stored and shared food in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B culture.

[67] Seals dating to the Indus Valley civilisation found in Harappa and Mohenjo-daro show an animal with curved horns like an aurochs.

[75][76] At the late Middle Palaeolithic Cueva Des-Cubierta site in Spain, Neanderthals are proposed to have kept the skulls of aurochs as hunting trophies.

[80] Upper Paleolithic rock engravings and paintings depicting the aurochs were also found in caves on the Iberian Peninsula dating from the Gravettian to the Magdalenian cultures.

[81][82][83] Aurochs bones with chop and cut marks were found at various Mesolithic hunting and butchering sites in France, Luxemburg, Germany, the Netherlands, England and Denmark.

[94] An aurochs head with a star between its horns and Christian iconographic elements represents the official coat of arms of Moldavia perpetuated for centuries.

[97] Results of genetic research indicate that the modern taurine cattle (Bos taurus) arose from 80 aurochs tamed in southeastern Anatolia and northern Syria about 10,500 years ago.

[87] Comparative analysis of single-nucleotide polymorphisms and shared alleles revealed admixture between East Asian aurochs and introduced taurine cattle in ancient China, for example at Shimao.

The same study detected derived alleles shared by aurochs and modern taurine cattle in East Asia, especially among Tibetan breeds.

[103] Aurochs fossils found at the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh in Pakistan are dated to around 8,000 years BP and represent some of the earliest evidence for its domestication on the Indian subcontinent.

[30] Female Indian aurochs contributed to the gene pool of zebu (Bos indicus) between 5,500 and 4,000 years BP during the expansion of pastoralism in northern India.

[98] The zebu was introduced through Ancient Egypt and started to spread comprehensively through West Africa in the last 1,400 years, along with Arabic cultural influences.

[107] The Indian aurochs (B. p. namadicus) became extinct sometime during the Holocene period, likely due to habitat loss caused by expanding pastoralism and interbreeding with the domestic zebu.

[121] Herds of these cattle were released to Oostvaardersplassen, a polder in the Netherlands in the 1980s as aurochs surrogates for naturalistic grazing with the aim to restore prehistorical landscapes.