William wrote:- 
"Easier to get meat from a herd than a wild animal - let us not  
underestimate the laziness (efficiency) of paleoman."

Domestication of wild cattle in the Palaeolithic  would have been  rather  more 
difficult than you might think - you have to remember that Palaeolithic/Early 
Neolithic-era wild cattle were giant aurochs, easily capable of killing a human 
being, they were not the timid, inbred modern cattle we have today. Without 
the use of domesticated dogs to help harass these ancient,giant cattle into 
enclosures, raising domesticated aurochs would have been very dangerous for 
humans, and therefore highly unlikely. 


Taken from the Aurochs entry for Wikipedia:-

"Modern cattle have become much smaller than their wild forebears: the height 
at the withers of a domesticated cow is about 1.4 meters, whereas an 
aurochs could reach about 1.75 meters. Aurochs also had several features 
rarely seen in modern cattle, such as lyre-shaped horns set at a forward 
angle, a pale stripe down the spine, and sexual dimorphism of coat color. Males 
were black with a pale eel stripe down the spine, while females and calves 
were reddish. They were also known to have very aggressive temperaments 
and killing one was seen as a great act of courage in ancient cultures."

Current genetic DNA-research(re Wikipedia etc.) places the domestication of 
dogs(from captured wolves) to c.14,000 to 17,000 years ago, preceding 
domestication of any other animals, such as horses,cattle etc.


Here's a couple of standard standard links re Punctuated Equilibrium. It's 
remarkably Creationist in its approach:-

http://tinyurl.com/yo9vwy

http://tinyurl.com/365mty

Geoff