Find Shows Early Cat Domestication

Findings at a newly excavated grave in Cyprus have moved back the date for the first domestication of cats by at least 5,000 years, suggesting that felines have been living with humans nearly as long as dogs have, researchers said Friday.

Archeologists have known that the Egyptians had tame cats 4,000 years ago and suspected that the relationship extended back much further in time, but the new evidence reported this week in the journal Science provides the first firm evidence of that association.

Jean-Denis Vigne of the CNRS-Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris and his colleagues discovered the grave in Shillourokambos, a large Neolithic village inhabited between 8,300 and 7,000 B.C.

The cat was found in the same grave as a human -- whose sex is unknown because of damage to the pelvis -- along with a variety of polished stones, tools, jewelry, seashells and other items believed to be offerings. The offerings were relatively rich for the time, indicating that the person buried had some degree of social status.

The cat was buried a little more than a foot from the human, and both of their heads faced west.

The animal belonged to the wildcat species Felis silvestris and was significantly larger than modern cats. The cat, which was probably about 8 months old at the time of its death, showed no signs of butchering, which suggests that it was a pet or shared some other special relationship with the grave’s occupant.

Vigne speculated that cats started living close to humans as many as 11,000 years ago, when humans began living in villages. The cats would have found the mice living on stored grain a rich food source.

Evidence for the taming of dogs goes back slightly further, to about 12,000 years ago.