Ancient DNA reveals how cats conquered the world
"Humans may have had pet cats for as long as 9,500 years. In 2004, archaeologists in Cyprus found a complete cat skeleton buried in a Stone Age village. Given that Cyprus has no native wildcats, the animal (or perhaps its ancestors) must have been brought to the island by humans all those millennia ago.
Yet despite our long history of keeping pet cats and their popularity today, felines aren’t the easiest of animals to domesticate (as anyone who’s felt a cat’s cold shoulder might agree). There is also little evidence in the archaeological record to show how cats became our friends and went on to spread around the world.
Now a new DNA study has suggested how cats may have followed the development of Western civilisation along land and sea trade routes.
[...]
To track the spread of the domestic cat, the authors of the new study, published in Ecology and Evolution, examined DNA taken from bones and teeth of ancient cat remains. They also studied samples from the skin and hair of mummified Egyptian cats (and you thought emptying the litter tray was bad enough).
They found that all modern cats have ancestors among the Near Eastern and Egyptian cats, although the contributions of these two groups to the gene pool of today’s cats probably happened at different times. From there, the DNA analysis suggests domestic cats spread out over a period of around 1,300 years to the 5th century AD, with remains recorded in Bulgaria, Turkey and Jordan."
"Humans may have had pet cats for as long as 9,500 years. In 2004, archaeologists in Cyprus found a complete cat skeleton buried in a Stone Age village. Given that Cyprus has no native wildcats, the animal (or perhaps its ancestors) must have been brought to the island by humans all those millennia ago.
Yet despite our long history of keeping pet cats and their popularity today, felines aren’t the easiest of animals to domesticate (as anyone who’s felt a cat’s cold shoulder might agree). There is also little evidence in the archaeological record to show how cats became our friends and went on to spread around the world.
Now a new DNA study has suggested how cats may have followed the development of Western civilisation along land and sea trade routes.
[...]
To track the spread of the domestic cat, the authors of the new study, published in Ecology and Evolution, examined DNA taken from bones and teeth of ancient cat remains. They also studied samples from the skin and hair of mummified Egyptian cats (and you thought emptying the litter tray was bad enough).
They found that all modern cats have ancestors among the Near Eastern and Egyptian cats, although the contributions of these two groups to the gene pool of today’s cats probably happened at different times. From there, the DNA analysis suggests domestic cats spread out over a period of around 1,300 years to the 5th century AD, with remains recorded in Bulgaria, Turkey and Jordan."