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Posted on 11/28/2025 3:32:27 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
Despite oodles of data on dog domestication, the exact origins of our feline friends have long remained fuzzy. We do know that pet cats retained many of their wild cat ancestors’ characteristics. This—perhaps not surprising many cat caretakers—makes pet cats technically “semidomesticated.” But scientists have squabbled over precisely where and when such changes came about.
The feline timeline is especially tricky to pinpoint due to scarce archeological findings, along with the fact that the bones of wild cats and domesticated ones look quite similar. So far, researchers have encountered tantalizing clues, including depictions of cats as beloved, jewelry-wearing family members in Egypt around 3,500 years ago. But feline domestication might have happened even earlier, according to findings of cat bones from nearly 10,000 years ago in Cyprus. These revelations have suggested that cat domestication first cropped up in the Levant region.
Genetic analysis of ancient and modern cat specimens could offer more clarity, but few studies have taken on this endeavor so far. Recent analyses of ancient DNA hint that cats moved from what’s now Turkey to Europe some 6,000 years ago, coinciding with the dawn of large-scale agriculture. But it has been uncertain whether these kitties were truly domesticated or just a specific lineage of wildcats.
Now, new genetic analysis has offered some clearer insights: Domestic cats may have evolved from North African wildcats, rather than those from the Levant. These feline findings were reported in the journal Science. The authors also suggested that bona fide domesticated felines only arrived in southwest Asia and Europe around 2,000 years ago. Before then, cats that made their way to the region were instead “genetically European wildcats and reflect ancient hybridization rather than early domestication,” according to a statement about the study.
“Our findings challenge the commonly held view of a Neolithic introduction of domestic cats to Europe, instead placing their arrival several millennia later,” the authors wrote in the paper. The findings suggest cats, in their semi-domesticated state, joined humans as companions far later than did dogs.
This conclusion stemmed from analysis of 87 genomes from modern and ancient cats, the majority of which were from archaeological specimens that dated as far back as roughly 9000 B.C. This data encompassed cats from Europe, North Africa, and a region of Turkey called Anatolia.
The new paper comes with limitations, Jonathan Losos, an evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, who wasn’t involved in the new study, noted in an accompanying commentary in Science. For example, the European timeline proposed in this paper conflicts with depictions of cats found in modern-day Greece and Italy dating back to nearly 4,000 years ago. This contradiction might stem from a gap in genomic cat data between 2,000 to 4,000 years ago.
Today, house cats reside in every continent besides Antarctica, and, including feral felines, may number up to 1 billion. “Ever sphinxlike, cats give up their secrets grudgingly,” Losos wrote. “Yet more ancient DNA is needed to unravel these mysteries of long ago.”
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Yes, when are they going to be domesticated?..............
Cats seeing a people they can rule is not a twist. It was expected.
Never. Not mine, anyway.
LOL!
Mine aren’t there yet, not one of the 4
The most domesticated is the latest stray, it’s a 10-year-old who we found starving and terribly sick. I’m sure he’s had a horrible life, hadn’t even been neutered. So nobody probably took care of him in other ways either.
He’s only domesticated at the moment because he’s happy to have food and shelter. I’m sure pretty sure he’s just going to decide it’s his due and he’ll become just as ungrateful as the others.
Grain stores and mice.
LOL. When will they be domesticated. Made me chuckle. 😃
I’m gonna say...NEVER! You’ve heard my screed on ‘cat ownership’ before.
I have always HAD cats and I have never, personally BOUGHT a cat as I don’t even really LIKE cats! I am 100% a DOG PERSON! 100%. 1,000%! To Infinity%! LOL!
My current two are ‘useful feeders’ on the farm. Not sure how I ended up with so many others through the years...
Yup. Dogs for hunting, guard dogs and eventually fighting, all of which predated agriculture. As pack animals with strong in-group attachments and an innate sense of hierarchies, dogs were also much more inclined to join human packs, defer to the alpha male, and otherwise want to become best friends.
“Cats seeing a people they can rule is not a twist. It was expected.”
It’s not a BUG; it’s a FEATURE!
Agree.. they shxt in your house (but it’s in a box), they’re very clean, (they just shxt in your house then licked their azz and feet and you let them lick you), they’re so cuddly and loving, (after they shxt in your house in a box, licked their ass and feet, climbed all over your counters and furniture).
I’ll pass, give me a dog anytime as long as it’s larger than 50lbs and higher then you’re knee or they’re a cat that barks and never allow them on your furniture or bed and never take them to resteraunts, bars etc. they belong home and your Shitzi, etc are not Service Dogs they’re the same thing as a coloring book for psychologically F’d leftist idiots.
Dogs eat their own feces and lick their asses all the time.
God bless you!!
Not in my house.
LOL! You can’t get Zotted for the TRUTH!
https://www.elevenforest.com/collections/cute-cats?251114%E6%96%B0-discat-02&gad_source=5&gad_campaignid=22640437330
A dog and a cat are having an argument over who is the favorite of humans.
Buster, a smug labracadabrador nice doggie says,
“Humans like us more. They even named a tooth after us, the canine tooth. Naming such an important body part after us shows that they like us more.”
The cat, a Siamese if you please, or if you don’t please, slowly smiles and says,
“You’re really not going to win this one, you know.”
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