Cat Domestication

Cats exist all around the world in millions of homes, but arguments still exist on the domestication of cats. Cats serve a different position and abilities than a dog which complicates the answer to the domestication of the cat. Both cats and dogs start the process of domestication there is still an argument of when cats became a truly domestic animal. Cats existed in a mutually beneficial relationship with humans, even before Egypt, during Neolithic times. Complicated domestication process that challenges modern conventions of the term domestication provides a rich history of the ongoing domestication of cats. Before determining whether cats are a domesticated animal, first, the term must be clearly defined. Despite the catch-all term, Domestication

Human control and domestic animal’s reliance on them for survival has many pointing to what cats’ lack. Restrictions on breeding have only been enforced over a couple hundred years through pedigree (Driscoll et al.2009). There is the cemetery in Hierakonpolis, Egypt with six intact bodies of cats. These six cats were not from the same litter based on age, sex and size (Van Neer et al. 2014). Two adult cats, one of each gender but the female too young to be the mother of the four kittens. The four kittens are not of the same litter due to the short time between litters. The difference in cats of different litters shows that either the Egyptians were breeding the cats for domestication. If they were not actively domesticating them then they would have to capture these six cats on at least four different occasions (Van Neer et al. 2014). The amount of time or energy could have been used on a different species. There are arguments that cats become feral returning to the wild is a sign of domestication. There are many feral animals, including dogs, that do not rely on humans (Zeder 2012). Being feral does not take away the status of

Pre-Pottery Neolithic Cyprus in Shillourkambos, there was only two cat remains found with one of the bones identified as slightly over 10,000 years old (Vigne et al. 2011). This is the first appearance of cats on the island. However, many cat remains can be found on other Cypriot sites dating back 10,000 – 8,000 (Vigne et al. 2011). The Egyptian cemetery in Hierakonpolis dates to 3700-3600 BC (Van Neer et al. 2014). The Cypriot sites exceed the timeline for Hierakonpolis. Meanwhile, there is a separate timeline for the domestication of cats in China. Chinese Neolithic site Quanhucan the cats were dated to 6000-5000 BP (Hu et al. 2014). Quanhucan leopard cat has a separate domestication timeline and was replaced by the domestic cat as early as the “Tang Dynasty (AD618-907)” in China (Vigne et al. 2016). The evolution of the domestic cat (F. Silvestris Catus) starting with their clade has existed for about 130,000 years and 12,000 years of natural selection living with humans while the cat has only been restrictively bred for the last 200 years (Driscoll et al.2009). These timelines create a general guideline for the different types and ways of cat