The Irish writer George Bernard Shaw (or at least this quote is attributed to him) once said that "human beings are civilized to the extent that they understand a cat." This quote perfectly encapsulates the history of a very long-standing relationship: that between people and felines.
A few days ago, an international team of scientists analyzed the DNA of the remains of about 200 cats. These remains came from Egyptian mummies, Viking sites, and Stone Age caves, among other locations. The evidence suggests that all current domestic felines are descended, no more and no less, from the African wildcat, a subspecies of the Eurasian wildcat.
Scientists are mapping the most comprehensive biography of the cat to date. Its friendship with humans is thought to have emerged 10 millennia ago, when African wildcats approached the first agricultural settlements. They were likely attracted by the rodents that roamed freely through the crops. Coexistence during the Neolithic period in the Near East would have led to a selection of the most sociable cats, who eventually left the Anatolian peninsula in a first lineage that conquered present-day Bulgaria more than 6,400 years ago.
A second, later lineage dominated Ancient Egypt, as shown by DNA analysis of Egyptian feline mummies. Researchers—led by geneticists Eva-Maria Geigl and Thierry Grange of the French CNRS—believe that these cats conquered the Mediterranean about 3,000 years ago, aboard merchant ships, where they were introduced to reduce rat and mouse infestations. The study confirms the presence of these Egyptian-origin cats in the Viking port of Ralswiek, on the current German coast, in the 7th century. They also appear in the Persian port of Siraf—in what is now Iran—in the 8th century.
The analyzed DNA confirms what ancient Egyptian paintings already suggested: at that time, striped tabby cats were predominant, with bands in their fur, like their wild relatives. We told you about these cats, as you may recall, some time ago in this post. Meanwhile, the spotted pattern in domestic felines did not become common until the Middle Ages, after appearing in the 14th century in western Turkey.
The study, published in the specialized journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, involved Spanish paleontologist Laura Llorente, from the University of York (United Kingdom), and Arturo Morales, a biologist from the Autonomous University of Madrid. Both contributed to the analysis of prehistoric cat remains found in Tabernas (Almería) and Cova Fosca (Ares del Maestrat, Castellón).
The connection between the origin of the domestic cat and the agricultural revolution in the Near East was already proposed 10 years ago, in a pioneering study in which biologist Miguel Delibes de Castro participated. However, the strength of the new work comes from the analyzed remains, which span an immense period: from the 19th century to about 9,000 years ago.
Thanks to these studies, we are closer to understanding the root of this very special relationship. As well as getting to know our ARISTOCATS better, because the more we know about them, the better we can relate to them and the better care and attention we can provide.
If you want to continue learning more about our beloved domestic felines, we invite you to read this post, in which we discuss the close relationship between cats and African big cats.
