Post by Die Fledermaus on Apr 10, 2004 1:18:13 GMT -4
USA TODAY
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>> It appears that dogs have been chasing cats around the house for much longer than anyone thought.
A cat that may have been buried with its owner at least 9,500 years ago has been uncovered at an archeological site in Cyprus. If the animal was indeed a pet, the discovery, reported Friday in the journal Science, turns back the clock on the origin of the house cat by thousands of years.
Only dogs, domesticated 12,500 years ago, have a longer history as pets.
It had been thought that the ancient Egyptians were the first known cat owners. The Egyptians revered their felines and kept them as pets more than 4,000 years ago.
The new find adds to scientists' understanding of how early civilization grew. It indicates that grain farming, with its attendant mice, most likely brought the cat to the human hearth in prehistoric times.
An archaeological team led by Jean-Denis Vigne of the Natural History Museum in Paris discovered the cat burial site at Shillourokambos, a Stone Age village in Cyprus. Sixteen inches away from a human burial site, the team found a carefully buried 8-month-old cat's skeleton beneath a layer of dirt that is roughly 9,500 years old.
The 30-year-old person buried next to the cat was interred with offerings of polished stones, axes, flint tools, red ochre dye and seashells, all indicators of elevated status. "The joint burial could also imply a strong association between the two individuals, a human and a cat," the team writes.
The cat was most likely a tame African wildcat, the species that gave rise to today's house cat, the researchers say. A cat figurine has also been found at the site, one even older than the burial, suggesting a "spiritual" reverence for felines. Other animal remains at the site, in contrast, show signs of being butchered.
"The burial site strongly suggests at least some cats were tamed at the time," says paleobiologist Blaire Van Valkenburgh of the University of California-Los Angeles, who was not part of the discovery team. With a farming civilization springing up in that part of the world, Van Valkenburgh says, cats were most likely encouraged to hunt mice and were tamed in multiple locations.
"Cyprus is an island," she says. "People clearly brought them there for some reason." Grain farming started about 10,000 years ago on Cyprus.
However, paleontologist and veterinarian Tom Rothwell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York is more cautious. Ancient Egyptian art depicts cats with collars, jewelry and other marks of domestication, he notes, unlike the Cypriot cat. "At best, we can say it may have been an offering after a human death. But it's not clear evidence of domestication," he says. <<
Link
>> It appears that dogs have been chasing cats around the house for much longer than anyone thought.
A cat that may have been buried with its owner at least 9,500 years ago has been uncovered at an archeological site in Cyprus. If the animal was indeed a pet, the discovery, reported Friday in the journal Science, turns back the clock on the origin of the house cat by thousands of years.
Only dogs, domesticated 12,500 years ago, have a longer history as pets.
It had been thought that the ancient Egyptians were the first known cat owners. The Egyptians revered their felines and kept them as pets more than 4,000 years ago.
The new find adds to scientists' understanding of how early civilization grew. It indicates that grain farming, with its attendant mice, most likely brought the cat to the human hearth in prehistoric times.
An archaeological team led by Jean-Denis Vigne of the Natural History Museum in Paris discovered the cat burial site at Shillourokambos, a Stone Age village in Cyprus. Sixteen inches away from a human burial site, the team found a carefully buried 8-month-old cat's skeleton beneath a layer of dirt that is roughly 9,500 years old.
The 30-year-old person buried next to the cat was interred with offerings of polished stones, axes, flint tools, red ochre dye and seashells, all indicators of elevated status. "The joint burial could also imply a strong association between the two individuals, a human and a cat," the team writes.
The cat was most likely a tame African wildcat, the species that gave rise to today's house cat, the researchers say. A cat figurine has also been found at the site, one even older than the burial, suggesting a "spiritual" reverence for felines. Other animal remains at the site, in contrast, show signs of being butchered.
"The burial site strongly suggests at least some cats were tamed at the time," says paleobiologist Blaire Van Valkenburgh of the University of California-Los Angeles, who was not part of the discovery team. With a farming civilization springing up in that part of the world, Van Valkenburgh says, cats were most likely encouraged to hunt mice and were tamed in multiple locations.
"Cyprus is an island," she says. "People clearly brought them there for some reason." Grain farming started about 10,000 years ago on Cyprus.
However, paleontologist and veterinarian Tom Rothwell of the American Museum of Natural History in New York is more cautious. Ancient Egyptian art depicts cats with collars, jewelry and other marks of domestication, he notes, unlike the Cypriot cat. "At best, we can say it may have been an offering after a human death. But it's not clear evidence of domestication," he says. <<
