Researchers at the University of Oxford have a surprising new finding in the study of animal domestication. A new study reveals that the transition of cats from wild hunters to domestic companions occurred much later than previously thought and in a different location.
Analysis of bones unearthed by British archaeologists indicates that the close relationship between cats and humans began only a few thousand years ago—not in the Levant, as scientists had believed, but in North Africa.
“Cats are everywhere; we make TV shows about them, they dominate the internet… The relationship we have with them today began only 3,500 to 4,000 years ago, not 10,000 years ago as previously thought,” said Professor Greger Larson, the lead author of the study.
What Did the Scientists Discover?
All modern cats descend from a single species—the African wildcat. Scientists have long been intrigued by how, where, and when these animals lost their wildness and developed close ties with humans. Until now, many of the proposed theories were wrong.
To unravel this mystery, the university team extracted and analyzed DNA from cat bones found at archaeological sites in Europe, North Africa, and Anatolia. They dated the bones and compared the ancient DNA with the gene pool of modern cats, as reported by the BBC.
The new data confirmed that cat domestication did not begin at the dawn of agriculture in the Levant but several millennia later somewhere in northern Africa.
“This is more of an Egyptian phenomenon,” said Professor Larson. The new findings align with what we know about the land of the pharaohs, where cats were revered, immortalized in art, and even mummified.
Once cats became accustomed to humans, they began to spread across the globe, often brought aboard ships to combat rodents. Domestic cats arrived in Europe only about 2,000 years ago, significantly later than previously believed.
As they traveled through Europe, cats reached Britain with the Romans and then ventured east along the Silk Road, eventually reaching China. Today, cats can be found in every part of the world except Antarctica.
Wild Asian leopard cat
The authors of the new study also discovered that wild cats lived among humans in China long before domestic cats appeared there. This refers to leopard cats that inhabited Chinese settlements around 3,500 years ago.
The results of the study were published in the journals Science and Cell Genomics.
Photo: Unsplash
