Petting Chester this morning lead me to wonder where and when the conjunction of cats and humans, as we know it now – there are estimated to be in the region of 600 million pet cats, worldwide – occurred.
I read several different things on the subject. The best of which was this piece from the Scientific American.
It seems, according to the evidence gathered in that article, that Felix Silvestris Lybica, or the African Wildcat, is the prime candidate for ancestor to our modern domestic cats.
The common name is a little misleading, however. As rather than the African continent, the location for the coming together of cats and humans is believed to be the Fertile Crescent:
This places the conjunction of cats and humans in what we’d nowadays call The Middle East, rather than Africa. And one of the earliest archaeological evidences for this is the burial together of a human and a cat, on the island of Crete, about 10,000 years ago.
There are several striking thing about cats, as opposed to most other domesticated animal species: the latter, from cows, pigs, sheep, to dogs, are social or group – herd or pack – animals. And they serve us in many obvious ways. Providing meat, clothing, and security services.
Cats, by contrast, are solitary, and not so biddable. It seems possible or probable that they chose to live with us, rather than vice versa. And the trade off was access to domestic mice and human trash; bountiful food sources for the populations of f. s. lybica living near the booming human settlements of The Fertile Crescent.
Oh, and then there’s the fact that they’re adorable!