Ancient DNA reshapes the origin story of house cats
For decades, archaeologists believed that cats first started living alongside early farming communities in the Levant — covering parts of today’s Middle East and eastern Mediterranean — around 9,500 years ago, reports CNN.
New research based on ancient DNA has upended long-held assumptions about where the world's domestic cats came from and how their relationship with humans began.
For decades, archaeologists believed that cats first started living alongside early farming communities in the Levant — covering parts of today's Middle East and eastern Mediterranean — around 9,500 years ago, reports CNN.
As humans stored harvested grain, rodents gathered, drawing in wildcats and eventually leading to domestication. The oldest known example of a cat buried with a human, from Cyprus, supported this theory.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
But two newly published genetic studies suggest a very different story: the domestic cats seen around the world today appear to have much more recent origins and were not the earliest felines to form bonds with humans.
"We began examining bones previously assumed to be early domestic cats, going back 10,000 years, to see which of them actually matched the genomes of today's cats," said Professor Greger Larson of the University of Oxford, a coauthor of the studies. "That completely undermines the old narrative."
A Europe-focused study published in the journal Science analysed 87 ancient and modern cat genomes and found that the domestic cat, Felis catus, originated in North Africa, not the Levant. These early cats were closely related to the African wildcat (Felis lybica lybica) and spread into Europe around 2,000 years ago, likely alongside the expansion of the Roman Empire.
A second study, published in Cell Genomics, examined DNA from 22 ancient cat bones found in China. It revealed that before domestic cats arrived, another wild feline species — the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) — had been living near human settlements from at least 5,400 years ago until around AD 150.
Although these "leopard cats" shared living spaces with agricultural communities and helped control rodents, they were never domesticated. Instead, researchers say, they maintained a "commensal" relationship in which both species benefited, but humans did not exert control over their breeding or behaviour.
Shu-jin Luo of Peking University, a senior author of the study, said the leopard cat eventually drifted back to natural habitats. One reason for its failure to become domesticated may have been its reputation for attacking chickens — a trait reflected in Chinese folklore, where it is known as the "chicken-catching tiger."
Changing poultry-farming practices and historic upheavals following the fall of the Han dynasty may also have pushed the species away from human settlements, the study suggests.
The new findings highlight how ancient trade networks such as the Silk Road facilitated the spread of domestic cats. By the year 730, domestic cats had reached China, likely travelling in caravans.
Jonathan Losos, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, noted that the North African origins fit well with the prominence of cats in ancient Egyptian culture, though it remains unclear whether Egypt played the central role in their domestication or simply accelerated the process.
Researchers say many questions remain unanswered, partly due to the lack of ancient cat remains from North Africa and southwest Asia.
"Like the sphinx, cats reveal their secrets slowly," Losos wrote in a commentary accompanying the Science study. More ancient DNA, he said, will be needed to fully piece together the story of how one of humanity's most familiar companions came to be.
