The Irish writer George Bernard Shaw (or at least he is credited with this quote) once said that “human beings are civilized to the extent that they understand a cat.” This quote perfectly sums up the history of a relationship that goes back a very long way: that between people and felines.
A few days ago, an international team of scientists analyzed the DNA of the remains of around 200 cats. These remains came from Egyptian mummies, Viking sites, and Stone Age caves, among other sites. The evidence suggests that all modern domestic cats descend, no more and no less, from the African wildcat, a subspecies of the Eurasian wildcat.
Scientists are tracing the most comprehensive biography of the cat to date. Their friendship with humans is thought to have emerged 10,000 years ago, when African wildcats approached the first agricultural settlements. They were probably attracted by the rodents roaming freely among the crops. Neolithic coexistence in the Near East would have led to the selection of the most sociable cats, which eventually left the Anatolian Peninsula in a first lineage that reached present-day Bulgaria more than 6,400 years ago.
A later second lineage dominated Ancient Egypt, as shown by DNA analysis of Egyptian feline mummies. The researchers — led by geneticists Eva-Maria Geigl and Thierry Grange of France’s CNRS — believe that these cats conquered the Mediterranean around 3,000 years ago, aboard merchant ships, where they were brought in to reduce rat and mouse infestations. The study confirms the presence of these Egyptian-origin cats at the Viking port of Ralswiek, on what is now the German coast, in the 7th century. They also appear at the Persian port of Siraf — in what is now Iran — in the 8th century.
The analyzed DNA confirms what the paintings of Ancient Egypt had already suggested: at that time, striped tabby cats predominated, with bands in their coats, like their wild relatives. We told you about these cats, as you may recall, some time ago in this post. By contrast, the spotted pattern in domestic felines did not become common until the Middle Ages, after appearing in western Turkey in the 14th century.
The study, published in the specialized journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, involved Spanish paleontologist Laura Llorente of the University of York (United Kingdom) and Arturo Morales, a biologist at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Both contributed analysis of the remains of prehistoric cats 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 involving biologist Miguel Delibes de Castro. However, the strength of the new study lies in the remains analyzed, which cover an immense period: from the 19th century to around 9,000 years ago.
Thanks to these studies, we are coming closer to understanding the roots of this special relationship. They also help us get to know our ARISTOCATS better, since the more we know about them, the better we can relate to them and the better care and attention we can provide.
If you would like to learn more about our beloved domestic felines, we invite you to read this post, in which we discuss the close relationship between cats and the great African felines.
