A study released in 2007 revealed some startling genetic information about domestic cats.
For starters, the journal Science study showed that every breed of household cat originated from only a handful of lineages that lived in the ancient Near East region known as the Fertile Crescent.
How Did Cats Become Domesticated?
How Did Cats Become Domesticated? Mummy cat from the Louvre Egyptian exhibit
About 9,500 years ago, cats may have been kept as pets in Cyprus. (The ancient remains of a human and a cat were found buried together on the island.) But DNA researchers say the domestic cat actually may have branched off from its wild relatives many centuries earlier, near the beginning of human civilization.
Researchers say these cats ventured from the wild and began living near farmers by feeding on mice. They may have co-existed uneasily (not getting close enough for petting) with humans for centuries before natural selection began favoring those cats whose DNA by chance made them more tolerant of human contact. A bowl of milk or two later, and we had furry friends for life: some of the earliest known pets.
This should put to bed the theory that Egyptians were the first to domesticate the cat just 4,000 years ago. (In Egyptian society, cats were so highly regarded that at one time the punishment for killing a cat — even accidentally — was death.)
“Mankind settled down into agricultural villages for the first time about 12,000 years ago, developing many domestic cereals and plants,” said Stephen O’Brien, an author of the 2007 study. “That’s about the time and exact same place that cats walked out of woods and did something unusual: act friendly.”
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