Cat

Animalia

"Most of today’s domesticates began as farm animals, but cat domestication took a different path. Cats became commensal (members of one species gain benefits while those of the other species neither benefit nor are harmed) of humans somewhere in the Fertile Crescent, attracted to early farmers’ settlements by rodent pests. Cat remains from Poland dated to 4,200 to 2,300 y BCE are currently the earliest evidence for the migration of the Near Eastern wildcat to Central Europe. Tracking the possible synanthropic (associated with humans) origin of that migration, we used stable isotopes to investigate the paleodiet. We found that the ecological balance was already changed due to the expansion of Neolithic farmlands. We conclude that among the Late Neolithic Near Eastern wildcats from Poland were free-living individuals, who preyed on rodent pests and shared ecological niches with native European wildcats." - Ancestors of domestic cats in Neolithic Central Europe: Isotopic evidence of a synanthropic diet