This from Science magazine via AP: I was raised with the idea that the domestication of dogs far predates the domestication of cats. This, it was explained, was why dogs are loyal and obedient, while cats are reserved and self-possessed: cats still have the idea that they can slink back into the Neolithic mists if they have to.
Now, a nearly-10,000-year-old grave site in Cyprus provides evidence of domesticated cats existing far earlier than could be proven previously through archaeology:
While ancient Egypt provides the first written record of cats, a burial discovered on Cyprus indicates humans and felines may have become associated much earlier.
... Jean-Denis Vigne of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris believes the relationship first blossomed with the development of agricultural societies 10,000 or so years ago.
"It seems that cats probably came more and more frequently into villages where grain stocks attracted numerous mice," said Vigne.
The cat belonged to the Felis silvestris species, a wild cat, which was significantly larger than modern domestic cats. The cat's bones were placed carefully, parallel to the human, and showed no signs of butchering, another indication the animal may have been a pet, Vigne said in a paper in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
... Blaire Van Valkenburgh, a biology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, agreed the finding is "the first suggestion that there was a significant emotional attachment" between a human and a cat.
Posted by Patrick at April 8, 2004 03:52 PM