One of the most fascinating aspects of our pets, especially dogs and cats, is that we still don’t know exactly how they became domesticated. Or rather: we have an increasingly clear idea, but there are still many mysteries to be revealed.
A new study published in Science revolutionizes what we thought we knew about domestic cats, moving the clock of their domestication forward by about five thousand years: in other words, cats have been living together with humans for much less time than we thought.
From Anatolia to Europe. Before the publication of this study, we had set the date of domestication of cats at the Neolithic period, and the area of origin in the Levant. The most convincing evidence for this theory was two: the discovery in Cyprus of a “mixed” human-feline burial dating back 7,500 years ago, and the analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of Turkish cats over the last 6,000 years – a study that indicated how domestic cats spread from Anatolia to Europe following the first agricultural populations.
Wild or domestic? However, there is a problem behind these discoveries: the skeletons of domestic cats are identical to those of wild cats, and are not sufficient to understand whether a feline buried with a human was a “modern” cat or its ancestor.
To overcome the limitations of the bones, the team that conducted the study analyzed the genome of 70 “ancient” cats and 17 wild cats: the authors say that they were convinced they had the genome of the first domestic cats in front of them, but that the results sensationally proved them wrong.
The genome speaks. The genomes of ancient cats have in fact demonstrated that the specimens from the Levant were not domestic cats but European wild cats (Felis silvestris): applies to all animals found older than 2,000 years, which indicates that the real process of domestication began from then on.
All the previous cats are wild, even if they were already beginning to have a commensal relationship with humans. In short: our Neolithic ancestors lived side by side with cats, which however were of a different species than “ours” and were not yet domesticated.
All cats lead to Rome. As mentioned, the first genomes that coincide with those of current domestic cats date back to about 2,200 years ago. Their genetic history, however, tells us that it took them very little to gain a foothold in our homes (and our hearts): since they were domesticated, they spread throughout the Roman Empire within a few decades – and have never abandoned us since.
