The following post was
requested by two parties: former student, Hannah Little, and my good friend,
Forest Schafer. This post is dedicated
to both of them and their inquisitive minds and curiosity.
 |
| One spoiled house cat. Dr. Boston's cat, Rook. |
Love them or hate them, but Americans have an obsession with
cats. Cat videos and cat memes have
taken the internet by storm, and many households have at least one cat as a
house pet. Anyone who owns a cat will
probably tell you that the cat runs the household, and that may actually not be
too far off from the truth as cats are only semi-domesticated and, unlike in
the case of the domestication
of dogs, cats domesticated themselves with very little human
intervention. Today’s blog post will
explore the history and process of cat domestication.
Cats are believed to have begun domestication around 9000 to
10000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent (the land between the Tigres and
Euphrates Rivers) in the Middle East.
This is just after the advent of agriculture, which led to food
surpluses. It is believed that food
surpluses led to large scale storage of grain.
This grain would have been an attractive food source to a variety of rodents,
who bring with them disease and other filth.
Wild cats are believed to have been drawn to these food storage areas to
easily hunt rodents, and local humans noticed the cats’ work and found it favorable
to their goals of keeping their food stores unharmed. The local humans may have encouraged cats to
stay by feeding them.
Cats may have been domesticated independently in other parts
of the world, specifically China were archaeological evidence and paleogenetic
analyses support this notion. Scholars
found several cat remains at a site dating to 5000 years ago. The analyses on these remains demonstrated
that these cats were from a different founding population than those found in
the Middle East and were actually from an Asian wild cat species. No further evidence has been found to suggest
further independent domestication processes, which may or may not exist based
on historical and archaeological evidence that suggests cats were exported from
the Middle East to various locations throughout the Old and New Worlds.
Domesticated cats differ slightly from their wild
counterparts. Aside from stark
morphological differences (e.g. smaller size, shorter muzzle) domesticated cats
and wild cats are not very genetically dissimilar. Domesticated cats have reduced smell as
compared to wild cats, which is believed to be related to hunting. Domesticated cats still hunt, but their need
to hunt is reduced given their origins being related to easy hunting practices
due to rodents and grain storage units.
Domesticated cats still have sharp night vision, as well as acute
hearing, all of which are related to exploiting resources during the night,
when canines are not active. As well,
domesticated cats have altered the vocalizations in order to allow them to
better communicate with their human handlers (or servants). ;)
Bibliography
Fang, J. 2014. “How Cats Became Domesticated.” IFLScience.
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/genome-comparison-shows-how-wildcats-became-housecats
Ghose, T. 2014. “Will Purr for Treats: How Cats Became
Domesticated.” Live Science. http://www.livescience.com/48696-origins-of-cat-domestication.html
Grimm, D. 2016. “Were Cats Domesticated More Than Once?” Science.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/were-cats-domesticated-more-once
No Author. 2016. “The Natural History of the Cat.” Alley Cat Allies. http://www.alleycat.org/CatHistory
No Author. No
Date. “The Origins of Cats.” International Cat Care. http://icatcare.org/advice/cat-care/origins-cats
