In 1871, cows were abandoned on a remote subantarctic island. More than a century later, their descendants had grown into a wild herd of thousands, surviving generations of isolation in one of the harshest environments on Earth. The story began when a French farmer named Heurtin attempted to establish a settlement on Amsterdam Island, an isolated volcanic island in the southern Indian Ocean, roughly 2,750 miles southeast of Madagascar. The settlement failed within months, but five cattle were left behind. With no farmers, fences or livestock management, the cattle survived and reproduced. By 1952 their population had reached roughly 2,000, a number reached again in 1988. Scientists later confirmed genetically that the enormous herd really could be traced back to the tiny founding population. Their success came at a cost. Grazing damaged native vegetation and threatened habitat used by the extremely rare Amsterdam albatross. Conservation authorities eventually removed the cattle, with the last animals eliminated by 2010. The five abandoned cattle underwent an extraordinary physical transformation. Within roughly a century, their descendants had become significantly smaller-bodied, an example of rapid “island dwarfing” occurring in only about 20 generations. #archaeohistories