"A pair of new studies published on Thursday show that the road to cat domestication was far more complex than scientists first suspected. One of the new papers, published in Science, centers on ancient wild and domesticated cats in North Africa, Europe and the Middle East, while the other, appearing in Cell Genomics, focuses on the history of cats in ancient China. Taken together, the findings show that cat domestication unfolded more slowly and less smoothly than scientists had thought."
"Both teams faced the same challenge in their quest to understand how cats came to sit on matsnamely, a paucity of archaeologic evidence through time. There are several reasons for this lack: for instance, bones from animals that humans eat are more likely to be found during excavations, and cat bones are very small. This also means that both teams' reconstructions of feline history are hypothetical and require further investigationthey are not the definitive story of cats."
Two genomic studies examine cat domestication across distinct regions and time frames, revealing a slow, uneven process rather than a single rapid event. One study analyzes ancient wild and domesticated cats from North Africa, Europe and the Middle East, while the other traces feline history in ancient China. Evidence is fragmentary because small cat bones are rarely preserved or recovered compared with food animals, producing gaps and uncertainty in reconstructions. Genetic and archaeological data suggest varied regional trajectories and interactions with wildcat populations, and current reconstructions remain provisional and require further investigation.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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