Evoluon & Behaviour September 20, 2017 How cats conquered the Ancient world: a 9,000-years DNA tale by Eva-Maria Geigl1 | Research Director, Thierry Grange1 | Research Director

1:Naonal Research Center CNRS, Jacques Monod Instute, University Paris Diderot, 15 rue Helene Brion, 75013 Paris, France

This Break was edited by Max Caine, Editor-in-chief - TheScienceBreaker

When animals became domescated, established that benefied both partners. they gained protecon from starvaon, We performed a paleogenec analysis of the predaon and disease but lost freedom. This is mitochondrial DNA of more than 300 very well exemplified with the dog, the first archeological cat remains from the last 10,000 animal that had been domescated and that is years in Europe, South West Asia and North very different from its ancestor, the wolf, in Africa. In agreement with the hypothesis that terms of behavior, morphology and physiology, the translocaon of animals by Neolithic farmers which is also seen in its genome. But what about is indicave of an early taming process, the the cat that in many cases is sll difficult to phylogeographic paern of cats changed aer disnguish from wildcats, even at the genomic the Neolithizaon. Indeed, the Anatolian lineage level, and whose behavior is not too different of ancient nave F. s. lybica wildcat, was found from the one of wildcats either? in more recent remains from southeast Europe It was known from analyses of the as well as elsewhere in southwest Asia where it mitochondrial DNA from modern cats that all is known, from archeological data, that the domesc cats, including feral ones, descend Anatolian farmers had migrated at later periods. from the north African wildcat F. s. lybica, that is Many archeologists had been convinced for a also present in southwest Asia. This is the region long me that the cat had been tamed in Egypt where humans first started during the because of the parcular role that cats had Neolithic period to domescate plants, seled played in ancient Egypt. This was deduced from down and began farming. They also started to tombs and statues, but also described by Greek- domescate those animals that they used to Roman writers such as Herodotus. Indeed, so far hunt and eat, such as sheep, goats and pigs. The it was the abundant Egypan iconography that archeological find of a cat skeleton in a ca. represented the major source of informaon 9,500-year-old child burial on Cyprus suggests about the prominent place, worshipped and that early Neolithic farmers had transported the adored, allocated to cats in ancient Egypt. Due cat to this island. This also suggests that cats had to this parcular status, we were not too been drawn into the human sphere of life, surprised when we found a parcular presumably through the "vector" rodents that mitochondrial lineage in cat remains from Egypt thrived on cereals stocks accumulated by the dang to the 1st millennium BCE. We were farmers who seled, for the first me in human surprised, however, to see this lineage spreading history, in the Ferle Crescent. Rodents destroy very fast and efficiently to other locaons within the harvest through feeding upon it but also a few centuries, including a Viking site at the through pollung it with their excrements. Balc Sea. In Anatolia by Roman mes, the Moreover, they gnaw on organic material, such nave lineage was not the majority anymore, as ropes on ships or leather parts of weapons. but was surpassed by the Egypan lineage. In Cats preyed on these animals delivering the addion, we discovered the mitochondrial farmers from these pests and venomous lineage of the Central and south Asian wildcat in animals. A commensal relaonship was remains from a Roman port in Egypt. This port

TheScienceBreaker | Science meets Society 1 of 2 was located at the Red Sea and it was characterized by very ght trading bonds with India. Pung together these different pieces of evidence a composed picture arose that showed us that the dispersal of cats must have been occurred mainly by ships where they either embarked themselves or were embarked by seafarers to protect the food supply and the ropes from rodents. They might have been compensated with new delicacies, such as fish. Thus, cats seem to have conquered the world by boat - a conclusion we would not have been able to draw without the analysis of so many samples! We could also add another jigsaw piece to the tale of cat domescaon by analyzing the coat paern: while the fur of all wildcats has stripes, many domesc cats have a patchy fur marking. According to our samples, the gene behind this paern made its appearance aer the 13th century CE, and then spread from Anatolia throughout the Ooman Empire. This is evidence in support of the hypothesis that cats had not been selected very much over most of the me they used to live in human company, but rather kept on being independent, almost wild hunters with the difference that they just did not run away from humans.

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