The breed arose in north-east Scotland in the counties of Aberdeen and Angus. Excavations have revealed that polled cattle existed there in prehistoric times.The origin of Angus cattle is speculative. Some claim that they are a mutation from an earlier black, horned breed of Scotland. Others claim that they sprang up from the polled cattle of Britain. Deliberate breeding began at the end of the eighteenth century. The breed was first formally recognized in 1835 with the first herd book published in 1862. In 1873, George Grant of Victoria, Kansas - a native of Branffshire, Scotland, and a retired London silk merchant - imported the first Angus bulls into the United States from Scotland, to use on his commercial range cattle. However, the first breeding herd - including animals of both sexes - to be imported into the New World was brought to Canada in 1876 by Professor Brown of the Ontario Agricultural College.