We know more about our connection to dogs; we've been keeping dogs (or vice versa) for at least ten thousand years, based on genetic analysis of bones found in proximity to human settlements -- and often, buried with honor. How this relationship started is a matter of conjecture:
Wolf: I'm going to attack you, and viciously tear apart and eat your children! You are no match for my ferocity!Cave man: We have peanut butter, sofas, and squeaky toys.Wolf: ... I'm listening
Domestic cats, on the other hand, have more uncertain origins. They were known to have been revered in ancient Egypt, and in fact the much-loved protector goddess Bastet is always depicted with a cat's head. The ancestors of today's house cats are thought to be the Libyan wildcat (Felis lybica), a small felid which is still found in most of Africa, the Middle East, and central and southern Asia. They were probably encouraged to live alongside humans for their use as mousers, and eventually became companion animals, just as dogs had earlier.
What's certain is that after that relationship formed, wherever humans went, their pets came along. A very cool series of studies a while back used patterns of cat genetics -- in particular, the prevalence of the polydactyly gene and the gene that controls swirled tabby coat coloration -- to figure out the paths of migration taken by their human owners. And just this week a fascinating paper appeared in the journal Science looking at how domestic cats first arrived in China, much more recently than you might think.
The first written reference to cats in China comes from the Tang Dynasty, and dates to the middle of the seventh century C.E. It's a rather horrifying story. An imperial concubine name Xiao ran afoul of a higher-ranked wife named Wu Zetian (Wu eventually was to become empress outright). Wu had Xiao condemned to death -- by having her hands and feet chopped off, then to be drowned in a barrel of wine -- and before the sentence was carried out, Xiao said, "In my next life, may I be reborn as a cat, and Wu Zetian as a mouse. I will then seize her by the throat to extract my revenge!"
Wu wasn't impressed, and had her rival executed anyhow. History doesn't record any subsequent rebirths as cats and/or mice.
The earliest domestic cat bones found in China are from an archaeological site called Tongwancheng, and date to only around 1000 C.E. There were earlier feline specimens, but they all seem to be the remains not of modern domestic cats but of the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), a small south Asian wildcat species (that recently was crossbred with the domestic cat to produce the Bengal breed), and which probably lived alongside humans but was never truly domesticated.
Bengal cat [Image licensed under the Creative Commons User:Lightburst, Paintedcats Red Star standing, CC BY-SA 4.0]
As far as domestic cats, they seem to have arrived in China via the Silk Road. Bones found in Kazakhstan, dating to the ninth century C.E., have a mitochondrial DNA signature that links both to later Chinese cats and to cats in the Middle East -- suggesting that merchant travel between the two is how cats arrived in east Asia.
Once there, they established a place in Chinese culture as the favorite pet of the wealthy. Like the earlier study of cat genes and human migration, this one has an odd filigree having to do with how human selection influences evolution. In Chinese culture, white is a symbol of purity, and white animals are especially revered. This gave Silk Road merchants an incentive to find and transport white cats -- a practice over a thousand years ago which has left its mark all these centuries later. This selectivity of importation is probably why today a disproportionate number of modern Chinese cats are white (or have white patches).
So we move, and we take our pets with us, and that changes both them and us. It's a very old connection, and one many of us cherish deeply. Think of that next time you cuddle with your kitty or puppy -- you're taking part in a relationship that goes back thousands of years, and was important enough even in those rough times that it drove commerce. So even before the existence of mail-order places like Chewy, where we can spend inordinate amounts of money pampering our furry friends, our bonds with our pets were still a deeply important part of our lives.
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