Domestication of the cat

The first paleontological discoveries located the first signs of domestication of the cat in Egypt, towards 2000 BC, but the discovery in 2004 of the remainders of a cat at the sides of humans in a burial in Cyprus pushes back the beginning of this relation to between 7,500 to 7,000 years BC.

The cat discovered had a morphology very close to the wildcat of Africa, without the modifications of the skeleton due to domestication: it was about a cat tamed rather than domesticated. The cohabitation of cats and man probably arrived with the beginning of agriculture: the storage of the grain attracted the mice and the rats, which attracted the cats, their predatory nature naturally attracting them to the area. The study undertaken by Carlos Driscoll on 979 cats made it possible to determine the probable origin of the domestic cat.

The domestic cat is not the only species among Felidae used like pet, the Jaguarundi or weasel cat, for example, are or were tamed to drive out the mice and the rats.