In 1968, the great English writer Rudyard Kipling published the story "The cat that walked by itself." The tale in which he told his version of how people made friends with cats is known to everyone from childhood. But despite the fascination of the story, this version of cat domestication is not scientific.
Zoologists, archaeologists and paleontologists have been researching this issue for many years. The exact date of the first appearance of a cat in a person's house is still unknown. Today we can no longer imagine life without these furry creatures, but why did our distant ancestors need them? Obviously, not in order to shoot them on video and upload videos to YouTube (and thereby increase productivity).
A new archaeological study claims that cats were first domesticated by ancient Chinese farmers in the Quanhucun village some 5,300 years ago.
“There are at least three different lines of research that will help us better understand the history of cat domestication. Our data suggests that the cats themselves came to the farming village because there were many rodents living there, feeding on grain collected by humans,”says co-author of the new study, Fiona Marshall, of the University of Washington in St. Louis.
More than five millennia ago, the Quanhutsun settlement served as a food source for ancient cats that hunted rodents. Interestingly, the cohabitation of a person and a cat in one place was more beneficial for the latter: the mutual benefit is obvious, but if the rodents could not eat all the supplies of a person, then the cats could remain hungry, since there were relatively few mice and rats in the district.
“Even if these animals were not yet domesticated, our data confirms that they lived in close proximity to farmers and had a mutually beneficial relationship with them,” Marshall said in a press release.
The history of the domestication of cats is difficult to reconstruct, as their remains are rarely found in ancient archaeological sites. Initially, it was believed that these animals first began to live with humans about 4,000 years ago in Ancient Egypt. But the results of recent studies indicate that the friendship between a cat and a person began much earlier. This is evidenced by the recently discovered burial of a cat in Cyprus, which dates back to the eighth millennium BC.
Note that the theory of "self-domestication" of cats, that is, the version according to which the animals themselves decided to live next to people, was not very popular. But in addition to Marshall and her colleagues from the United States, compatriots of ancient farmers were also involved in this study. Yaowu Hu and his team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences analyzed eight bones belonging to at least two ancient cats that were found at the site of the ancient village of Quanhutsun.
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Scientists have used radiocarbon analysis and isotopic analysis of traces of carbon and nitrogen in the bones of cats, dogs, deer and other animals, whose remains were found in this location. After a thorough study of the data, Hu and his colleagues had no doubts: cats independently came to humans, created a separate niche for themselves in society and played an important role in the life of ancient people. You can read more about these and other findings in an article published in the PNAS journal.
The results of radioisotope analysis also showed that rodents, domestic pigs and dogs ate grain that was grown by farmers, and deer refused this food. The cats, on the other hand, ate mainly rodents, of which there were many in the village. During the excavations, pots for storing grain were found, which were molded so that mice could not climb inside. This means that people did indeed suffer from the pest infestation, and cats relieved them of this problem.
At the same time, they were not secret saviors of people who went out hunting only at night, and hid from human eyes during the day. Having studied the remains of one of the cats, scientists determined that she died at a respectable age, which means that she lived comfortably in the village for many years. Analysis of the remains of another individual indicated that it periodically ate grain, which it was obviously fed by farmers.
As a result of the work, there were also unresolved questions. Since the vast majority of modern pets are descendants of the Middle Eastern steppe cat, it is necessary to understand if the inhabitants of the Quanhutsun village were also his direct descendants. Unfortunately, DNA analysis will no longer be possible, but if scientists can prove that the cats of the Quanhutsun village are descended from Middle Eastern steppe cats (which are not found in China), this will mean that they were not domesticated by ancient Chinese farmers, but by even more ancient people. and then the animals were simply brought into the village from outside.
Teams of French and Chinese scientists are currently studying this issue. Any results of new work will help to better understand the history of animal domestication.