These mean solar day , cat spend most of their timestarring in YouTube videos , although beforethe Internet was made of cat , these adorably aloof felid had a chain of other jobs that made them utilitarian companions for mankind . As a result , we have lean to contribute them along with us on our empiric ocean trip , allow them to elaborate their own territory across the globe . Now , a unexampled report has attempt to construct the longsighted journeying of the domestic cat , with the aim of determine their origin and dispersal story .
stage their inquiry at the recent International Symposium on Biomolecular Archaeology in Oxford , the team explicate how they sequenced mitochondrial DNA from the remains of 209 cat-o'-nine-tails found at archaeologic situation in Europe , Africa , and the Middle East . The earliest of these site was dated to about 15,000 eld ago , shortly before theagricultural gyration , while the most recent was from the 18th century .
Results indicated that cats spread across the world in two waves , the first of which had its root in the eastern Mediterranean , snug to the so - calledFertile Crescentwhere mankind made the passage from Orion - gatherers to Farmer . According to the researchers , it ’s probable that these other agriculturalists point out the benefits of keeping wild cat nearby so as to toss off any rodents that fertilise on their texture . As a result , they probably began naturalize these cats , and carried them with them as they expanded through the area .
A second genetic derivation was then found in cats across much of Eurasia and Africa several millennium later , first appear in Egypt around 2,500 years ago . It is well known that cats played a salient character inAncient Egyptian social club and mythology , and it is likely that these feline pharaohs were the progenitors of many modern house cats . The field of study source even report that this same mitochondrial DNA was later found in a hombre buried at a Viking site in Germany , which gives an indication of just how intertwined human and feline chronicle are .
concord to the researchers , cats belike began play along humans on their spheric journeys once sailors began raise them to act as as pest control officers on their ship , which is why jolly much everywhere that people live today , domestic catsare never too far away .
