Researchers studying a 5,000-year-old archaeological site in
China have discovered that wildcats first came to ancient villages to feed on
rodents, which were stealing farmers’ grains. The research shows, for the first
time, how the process of cat domestication started.
Pathways of
Domestication
Over the years, there have been a number of different
thoughts as to how domestication
of various animals came about. Some people proposed that early domestication
involved a kind of master-subject relationship, where humans guided wild
animals to domestication through selective breeding and other techniques. On
the opposite end of the spectrum, one theory holds that some domesticates
manipulated humans into relationships that benefited the animals, at, possibly,
the expense of people.
https://gizmodo.com/why-some-animals-can-never-be-domesticated-5756178
“Now, we look at it as being much more of a mutualistic
relationship between humans and animals,” said Fiona Marshall, an
anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. That is, both
human and animal reap some kind of benefit through their increasingly
co-dependent interactions. But not all relationships begin the same way
— there are three different “pathways” to domestication.
Animals such as sheep, goat and cattle became domesticated
through the prey pathway. They began as prey for hunters, but when their
numbers dwindled, people implemented smarter, more selective hunting practices and
likely protected the animals from other predators. Over time, these game
management strategies transformed into herding and eventually controlled
breeding. By comparison, the directed pathway is seen as a kind of intentional
domestication, where people selected animals to domesticate for things such as
milk, wool and transportation.
Species most frequently became domesticated through the commensal
pathway, Marshall told io9. Here, animals, including dogs, pigs and chicken,
came to human settlements to eat refuse or prey on other animals. At some
point, the animals developed closer bonds with humans, which eventually grew
into a domestic relationship. Researchers have reasoned that Near Eastern Wildcats
(Felis silvestris lybica; below) — which
are thought to be the ancestors of all
domestic cats — became domesticated through a commensal pathway, after
they began visiting human settlements to eat rodents. Surprisingly, however,
there has been little archaeological evidence to back up this idea.
In the archaeological record, the earliest evidence of a
relationship between human and wildcat goes back to 9,500 years ago in
Cyprus — at the site of Shillourokambos, archaeologists discovered a wildcat buried
with a human. “This suggests that people cared for that cat,”
Marshall said. “This might have been a really early stage of
domestication.” The first evidence for actual domestic cats stems from
Ancient Egyptian art from 4,000 years ago.
But just what happened during that crucial 5,500-year
timespan has been a complete mystery — until now.
Unearthing the Ancient
Food Web
Marshall’s colleagues in China, led by Yaowu Hu of the
Chinese Academy of Science, excavated the Quanhucun archaeological site,
located in the village of Quanhucun, Hua County, Shaanxi Province, China. The
site, Marshall explained, was an ancient farming village that was part of the
ancient Yangshao Culture, which was involved in the early domestication of
millet and pigs.
At the site, the scientists found the remains of various
animals, including pigs, deer, dogs and rodents. They also found numerous other
archaeological features and artifacts, such as houses, storage pits and pottery.
Ancient rodent burrows leading to grain-storage pits suggested that the farmers
had a major rodent issue — this was also evidenced by the presence of
certain crop-storage pots that were designed to protect food stores from
rodents.
The archaeologists discovered eight cat bones (from two or
more different cats) in three refuse pits, which also housed various other
animal bones, pottery and tools. Radiocarbon dating showed that the cat
specimens were about 5,300-years old, and that they lived in the area for at
least 200 years. Interestingly, scientists previously believed that cats first
appeared in China only 2,000 years ago.
Some of the cat specimens unearthed: A. left mandible; B. right humerus; C. left pelvis; D. left tibia. Via PNAS.
The team analyzed the carbon and nitrogen isotopes present
in the animal and human remains to determine what they ate. The results
suggested that the wild herbivores, such as deer and hare, fed on some kind of
wild vegetation in the area. The humans, dogs and pigs all had diets rich in
millet-based foods; the researchers believe the diets of the dogs and pigs were
based on human food remains (from leftovers or garbage) and feces. The rodents
also had isotope values indicative of millet products. The cats, on the other
hand, appeared to have been preying on animals with a high millet diet, which
were most likely those grain-eating rodents.
The isotope values of one of cat specimens stood out from
the rest. Unlike the other cats, this animal ate far less meat
than would be expected if it were actively hunting rodents. The cat may have been unable to hunt for whatever reason and instead lived by scavenging from human food remains, or villagers may have taken care of it. “It certainly wasn’t
living in a way that a wild cat would normally live,” Marshall said. Additionally, another
cat specimen had very worn teeth, showing that it survived into old age. “That suggests that cats were doing very well in that environment, whether they were wild or domestic or like feral alley cats today.”
https://gizmodo.com/whats-being-done-about-all-those-damn-feral-cats-1212779224
The study suggests that the cats were able to carve out a
niche in the Chinese farming village. As previous theories had suggested, the
cats were drawn to the village because of the abundance of rodents, which were
living off of the farmers’ food. Here, they had access to year-round food and
were possibly cared for by humans after they could no longer hunt — this
allowed them to thrive in the new habitat. Humans equally benefited from having
a new kind of pest control. Over time, the relationship between cats and humans
strengthened, leading to true domestication.
The scientists aren’t sure about the cats’ lineage. The
bones were smaller than European wildcat bones and comparable to those of
modern European domestic cats, but there’s no DNA evidence yet that the
unearthed cats are descendants of the Near Eastern Wildcat, which are not
native to the region. It may be the case that these Yangshao cats are semi-domesticated
Near Eastern Wildcats that had come from the west along a complex trade
network. These animals could also have interbred with Asian wildcats (F. s. ornata and F. s. bieti). Less likely, the cats may have been locally
domesticated from the Asian wildcat population, which would mean there’s an
entirely different domestication history of cats we don’t know about. The
Chinese researchers are now working with scientists in France to get DNA data
and some answers.
Whatever the case, Marshall thinks the work helps us
understand what our relationships with cats were initially like. “We now
know that humans and cats are historically tied together by food,” she
said.
Check out the full
study in the journal PNAS.
Top image via zaimoku_woodpile/Flickr. Inset image of Near Eastern Wildcat via Péter Csonka/Wikimedia Commons.
