How cats first crept in 9,500 years ago
Submitted by PaulM on Friday, 09 April 2004 Page Views: 951
DiscoveriesThe oldest pet cat has been uncovered by archaeologists, curled up near its probable owner and various offerings in a Neolithic grave dug 9,500 years ago.Purring cats have been warming our laps for thousands of years longer than thought, according to the discovery in Cyprus, reported by a French team today in the journal Science.
It was thought that wild cats were first domesticated by the ancient Egyptians to deal with mice, around 4,000 years ago.
"We immediately realised that this was an exceptional discovery," said Dr Jean-Denis Vigne of the CNRS-Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, whose team found the grave in Shillourokambos, a large Neolithic village, excavated under the direction of Dr Jean Guilaine of the College de France.
The cat appeared unharmed, though may have been killed so it could be laid to rest with its 30-year-old owner. Its careful burial marks the oldest known evidence of a special relationship between humans and cats.
"This is about as solid evidence as one can have that cats held a special place in the lives and afterlives of residents of this site," said Dr Melinda Zeder of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington.
Researchers had suspected that humans began taming wild cats long before the rise of the Egyptian civilisation: a cat jawbone was first discovered in a Neolithic site on Cyprus during the 1980s.
But while it showed humans had brought cats from the mainland, it didn't necessarily mean they had tamed them, according to Dr Vigne. "With this discovery we can now decide that these cats were linked with humans," he said.
The grave also contained a variety of polished stones, tools, jewellery, axes and other items believed to be offerings. A small pit with 24 complete sea shells lay nearby. In all, the offerings were relatively rich for the time and region, implying that the owner enjoyed some degree of social status.
Dr Vignie said: "The association of this burial with both the sea shells and the cat grave strengthens the idea of a special burial indicating a strong relationship between cats and human beings.
"Possibly tamed cats were devoted to special activities or special human individuals in the village."
The cat belonged to the Felis silvestris species, the wildcat, significantly larger than today's domestic cats. How the animal died remains a mystery, however, and more research will be needed to clarify the nature of the connections between cats and humans during this period.
Though the cat goddess Bastet and other feline deities from ancient Egypt are the best-known examples of cats in ancient mythology, archaeologists have also discovered older evidence suggesting a spiritual connection between humans and cats.
Many stones engraved with images of wild felines have been discovered from Western Asia and dated back to the Early Neolithic. Dr Vigne believes these artifacts are evidence that animals had spiritual significance for humans, though the exact nature of these relationships is not clear.
Source: Daily Telegraph
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