Pets|New bone discoveries and dna studies specified when and where the cat was domesticated.
The summary is made by artificial intelligence and checked by a human.
A new study shows that cats were domesticated as human pets only around 3,500-4,000 years ago, much later than previously thought.
The researchers analyzed the DNA found in cat bones from archaeological excavations in various parts of Europe, North Africa and Turkey.
The results suggest that domesticated cats are descended from wild cats in North Africa, with domestication occurring specifically in ancient Egypt.
Previously, it was thought that the close relationship between cats and humans started already ten thousand years ago.
CATS the long path from wild cats to domestic couches has been explained in more detail than before.
Bones found in archeological digs suggest that cats did not end up in a close relationship with humans until about 3,500 to 4,000 years ago. In the past, it has been thought that the relationship between cats began around 10,000 years ago.
In addition, the researchers located the beginning of attachment to cats in North Africa. In the past, it was thought that the ancestors of domestic cats were a mixture of wild cats from the Middle East and North Africa.
The history of cats has recently been investigated in two different studies. Science journals wrote about them Science and Cell Genomics. The issue was also reported on, for example BBC.
DOMESTIC CATS are all descended from the same species, the African wild cat.
Over the years, more and more cat bones have been found in archaeological excavations.
The domestication of cats was dated by studying the DNA found in cat bones. The bones had been collected for research from different parts of Europe, North Africa and the area of present-day Turkey.
The researchers dated when the bones were buried, examined their DNA and compared the results to the genes of modern cats.
“Taming took time”, says Leslie Lyonsa feline geneticist at the University of Missouri Scientific American -in leaf. He was not involved in the investigations.
“It seems to be more of an Egyptian phenomenon than previously thought,” says another supporter, Larson.
Of course, it was already known that cats were respected in the Egypt of the pharaohs. For example, they were mummified.
Cats has been transported with people around the world. They were, for example, valued as ship’s cats and for pest control.
Cats arrived in Europe around 2,000 years ago, much later than previously thought.
In Europe, they spread with the Romans all the way to Britain. Cats also traveled with the merchants of the Silk Road all the way to China around 1,400 years ago.
In China, however, that is, in ancient times, there was also a domesticated wild cat. It has the same markings as a leopard.
These leopard cats lived near human settlements in China already around 3,500 years ago.
“Leopard cats were worth living near people. People took them close because they, for example, preyed on rodents,” says one author of the science journal Cell Genomics Shu-Jin Luo Scientific Americanissa. Shu-Jin Luo is a professor of life sciences at Beijing-Tsinghua Center University.
“They also lived with people in China, but they moved around and were in contact with wild cats.”
Leopard cats were never properly domesticated. They still live wild all over Asia.
“Cats are independent,” reminds Scientific American of the pet’s nature Claudio Ottonipaleogeneticist from the University of Rome and co-author of the study in the journal Science.