Abstract: The new fossils of Bos primigenius in this study came from two regions in Hebei Province: Nihewan Basin (one partial skull with right horn-core and one humerus) and Longhua County (one humerus, one tibia, 2 calcanea and 3 astragali). The humerus from Nihewan has a total length of 457.3 mm, which almost represents the largest aurochs individual which has a two-meter shoulder height. The biggest humerus and other big cranial specimens in northern China can be correlated with the European counterparts of late Middle Pleistocene, and they should be contemporary. The smaller sized limb-bones from Longhua were unearthed from loess deposits, which can be attributed to Late Pleistocene. The current knowledge shows that aurochs may have arrived in China earlier than Late Pleistocene, because its associated taxa, e.g. Canis lupus, Panthera tigris, Mammuthus primigenius,Equus caballus, Coelodonta antiquitatis, Sus scrofa, Camelus knoblochi, Cervus elaphus, Alces alces and Bison priscus have appeared as early as late Middle Pleistocene or even earlier in Eastern Europe and Northern Eurasia. Furthermore, new numerical dating results show that the aurochs’ occurrences from some sites in China can be traced back to Middle Pleistocene. This study proposes that the larger sized aurochs should be of a late Middle Pleistocene age. In China, aurochs fossils mainly occur in the northern part and the transitional zone along the Huaihe River, but are absent in southern China and Southeast Asia, which resulted in the hypothesis of “Central Asian Corridor” through which aurochs reached China. In recent years as more bovini fossils were recovered in Africa, the Bos phylogeny was proposed, which assumed that the evolution of Bos lineage took place in Africa rather than in Eurasia as thought before, and the earliest ancestor of B. primigenius is Pelorovis turkanensis, finally the genus Bos dispersed into Eurasia at the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene. The present authors think that the African Pelorovis species are too different from the Bos lineage in morphology; on the contrary, the early Bosspecies from Siwalik in South Asia resembles B. primigenius very much. In China, most of the B. primigeniusfossils were recovered from fluvio-lacustrine deposits in North China Plain, Loess Plateau and Song-Nen Plain, whereas few of them were from loess deposit, which means that the aurochs fossils could be employed as an indicator of warm climate and wet environment. 

摘要： 原始牛(Bos primigenius)化石新材料包括泥河湾盆地禾尧庄的1件角心、上沙嘴的1件肱骨和承德隆化的1件肱骨、1件胫骨、1件踝骨、2件跟骨和3件距骨；其中上沙嘴的肱骨化石长达457.3 mm, 代表迄今在我国境内发现的最大原始牛个体，也是该种的最大记录之一，推算其所属动物的肩高接近2 m; 北京门头沟珠窝的原始牛头骨的眶后宽度及角心周长数据也是该种的最大记录之一；禾尧庄的角心标本稍小，但也比晚更新世多数同类要大；这些巨大的化石与欧洲中更新世晚期同类十分接近，其时代也应当与之相当，为中更新世晚期；过去认为原始牛在我国只出现于晚更新世地层，但现在看来该种在中更新世晚期就已扩散到中国。东欧及北亚的最新化石证据表明，过去认为与原始牛共生的晚更新世化石组合的常见属种早在中更新世晚期或更早时期就已出现，其中包括灰狼、虎、真猛犸象、马、真披毛犀、野猪、诺氏驼、赤鹿、驼鹿及草原野牛等。最新测年数据也表明中国北方有几个含原始牛化石的遗址是形成于中更新世晚期；本文认为华北和西北地区个体巨大的原始牛，代表中更新世晚期，而个体较小的则可能代表晚更新世或全新世；近些年在东北地区发现大量原始牛化石，但其中少见个体巨大者。在我国，原始牛化石分布只局限于北方及淮河过渡区，而在南方及毗邻的东南亚地区均未发现此类化石；因此，有人提出原始牛很可能是在中更新世中、晚期通过中亚走廊(Central Asian Corridor)进入中国。不过，近些年在非洲也发现了一些牛属(Bos)化石，因此有人又提出了牛属非洲起源的“奥杜威牛–牛属演化谱系”(Pelorovis–Bos lineage), 但该学说所依据的奥杜威牛化石材料，在形态结构上与牛属相去甚远，难以归入同类；此外，非洲可靠的牛属化石记录均未超过1 Ma。本文作者支持传统的牛属“南亚起源学说”，因为在南亚西瓦里克地区发现的早期牛属化石不仅时代更古老(早于2 Ma), 并且在形态上与原始牛更为相似。中国北方的原始牛化石主要发现于华北平原、黄土高原和松嫩平原的河湖相堆积层，仅极个别出现于黄土地层；由此推断原始牛可能更喜欢水系发育的林缘和/或沼泽环境。