HOW TO CONQUER THE WORLD

A brief history

- Charles C. Hofer

In 1983, archaeologists working on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea found something rather unusual. Buried in the remains of an ancient settlement, they uncovered the skeleton of a human being. This, of course, wasn’t all that odd. But what they found buried alongside these old bones made headlines: the jawbone of a small cat.

In 2004, archaeologists discovered another human and cat buried together on the same island. The archaeologists dated these bones to around 9,500 years ago. This remarkable discovery became the oldest known example of a pet cat. So, was that the first pet cat ever?

Probably not. Although the Cyprus cat provided another piece of the puzzle, scientists still don’t know exactly when cats were turned into pets, or domesticated. The origins of the pet cat seem to be as mysterious as the animals themselves.

CATS MOVE IN

The domestic cat can probably be traced back to the dawn of civilization, when humans first formed villages and towns and cities. Our earliest ancestors—going back about 300,000 years ago—were mostly hunters and gatherers. They wandered from place to place, following supplies of food and other resources. Then, at some point around 15,000 to 19,000 years ago, everything changed for Homo sapiens. For the first time, some groups of humans began farming and producing food from the land. As a result, many of our ancestors began staying in one place. Now with a reliable food source, the H. sapiens population boomed in areas like North Africa.