domestication of cats (Felice’s cats) probably began in North Africa, and at a much more recent time than previously estimated, suggests a new genomic analysis of current and ancient cats. DNA data indicate that the closest wild relatives of cats hail from Tunisia, and that supposedly domesticated specimens in prehistoric Europe are actually European wild cats (Felice sylvestris).
This is not the final study on this topic yet, as the researchers, led by Claudio Ottoni, from the University of Rome Tor Vergata (Italy), were unable to access the DNA of Egyptian cats (both ancient and modern). Egyptian cat breeds are a very important piece of the puzzle, as ancient Egyptian art is the first on the planet to depict cats in domestic situations, for example.
In any case, the North African connection generally seems to indicate, at least in part, a connection with the Land of the Nile, and analysis of other Old World cat specimens adds greater reliability to the conclusions. According to these clues, the presence of domestic cats began to become more common in European lands around the 2nd century BC or 1st century BC BC, when Rome became a great power and helped spread the small predators wherever its armies reached.
In the research published on Thursday (27) in the journal Science, Ottoni and his colleagues worked with 70 genomes (a set of DNA) from ancient cats, over a wide period extending from 11,000 years ago to the 19th century, in addition to using another 17 genomes from wild cats living today or from museums. DNA samples of ancient cats come from archaeological sites throughout much of Europe and Anatolia (now Asian Türkiye), while samples of modern animals come from Italy, North Africa, Bulgaria and Israel.
For an animal so common in homes and vacant lots around the world, the domestic cat has a mysterious and surprisingly difficult origin to investigate. The point is that the physical differences between couch cats and their close relatives in the wild are so subtle that some researchers consider the species only “semi-domesticated,” wrote Jonathan Losos, a researcher in the Department of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, who commented on the new study at the request of Science.
Therefore, it is not always easy to distinguish the skeleton of a wild cat from that of its relative. Previous studies that indicated a very ancient domestication of this species, such as the burial of a kitten next to a person on the island of Cyprus (eastern Mediterranean) around 7500 BC, indicated that the Near East could be the cradle of this process.
In this region (in areas such as Türkiye, Israel and Syria) and in North Africa there were wild populations of Phyllis Lipica Lipicathe African wild cat which, according to current consensus, would be the ancestor of domesticated cats. Some ancient DNA studies have identified genetic material associated with Asian subgroups of wild species in southeastern Europe at a similar time to the Cyprus burial.
All this led to the hypothesis that domestic cats, or their wild ancestors in the process of domestication, accompanied the migration of the first people who dominated agriculture in the Mediterranean. These groups had adopted cats as helpers in controlling pests in stored crops and grains (like rats and mice, of course). And when they spread across Europe thanks to population growth caused by agriculture, they would have taken cats with them.
The problem is that the oldest genomic data only includes mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). It is a small set of DNA “letters”, equivalent to only four printed pages if transcribed into text, and which are found only inside mitochondria, the power plants of cells.
In general, mitochondrial DNA is transmitted only from the mother to her sons and daughters, and is not mixed with the vast majority of genetic material found in the nucleus of cells. This means that it represents a very small part of the biological inheritance of the species.
In fact, when researchers analyzed the complete genomes of very ancient cats from Europe, between the 9th and 3rd centuries BC, they all had DNA from Felice sylvestrisEuropean wild cat. Only mtDNA was present in some cases F. lybica lybica. The most likely conclusion is that there were some episodes of interbreeding (“hybridization”) between species in nature, rather than the arrival of primitive forms of domesticated cats in Europe.
On the other hand, researchers have shown that all current domestic cats form a separate group, with a common ancestor, and that this group in turn is closer to wild cats. F. lybica lybica North Africa more than any other cats. Finally, from the first century AD onwards, almost all cats found in archaeological sites in Europe are related to today’s domesticated cats and, more distantly, to wild African forms.
One possibility is that the Phoenicians, a maritime people from present-day Lebanon who began colonizing present-day Tunisia and its surrounding areas shortly after 1000 BC, began transporting domestic cats to European regions on the other side of the Mediterranean. However, drawings in Egypt and Greece indicate that domestication was even earlier.
Currently, it is still very difficult to obtain DNA from cats that were mummified by the ancient Egyptians, and ironically, carcass preparation methods do not support genome preservation. It is expected that new attempts of this type will bear fruit in the future and clarify whether Egypt was in fact a center for the domestication of this species.