Mesopotamia stands as the cradle of civilization, birthplace of monumental architecture, land planning, accounting, urban development, the alphabet, and writing. Between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers lies a space that fostered not only early human achievement but also a unique partnership with felines. A new factual study in Nature from the University of Missouri sheds light on how humans and cats began sharing this landscape and shaping each other’s futures.
The study notes that the domestication of cats likely reflects a symbiotic relationship between wildcats, a subspecies felis silvestris, and people in developing agricultural societies in Mesopotamia. Yet the authors question whether cats were truly domesticated in the same way dogs were, highlighting that many cats retain wild traits and behavior even after joining human settlements. When a domestic cat is released into the wild, it often resumes hunting and breeding, a path not universally followed by dogs.
The bond between humans and cats emerged as felines shifted from hunter-gatherers to settled farmers, marking a transition to crop cultivation about ten thousand years ago.
The study explains that brave lynxes may have benefited from higher prey density near human settlements, while people gained protection from vermin through these feline hunters.
Genetic patterns observed in cats in this research mirror those found in other species, especially humans after the shift to farming. The researchers suggest that human history can be traced in the DNA of domesticated animals.
pest controllers
The advent of agriculture allowed communities to store abundant food, which created surpluses that attracted mice and rats. This made cats ideal as persistent hunters who became a visible and valued part of daily life.
Fascination with the cat, a creature both sensitive and independent, led people to accompany the animal on migrations across the planet.
To determine when cats became pets, researchers analyzed genetic samples from more than a thousand cats, mainly of Eurasian origin in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
They examined what they described as randomly bred cats, including those wild, stray, domestic, and barn cats. Some examples appear to be semi-domesticated in behavior, able to return to the wild when needed.
The study concludes that the overall structure of the current cat population points to a single global population with significant isolation due to distance from peripheral subpopulations.
Cat population diversity supports migration patterns of humans and other symbiotic species, the authors write. This explains how cats have moved with humans and colonized lands they visited.
The findings indicate that most domestic cats originated in the eastern Mediterranean basin before spreading to nearby islands and along the coast toward the Nile valley, gradually expanding their presence worldwide.
A “very special” animal
The genetic analysis also shows notable differences between cats from Western Europe and those in Southeast Asia, highlighting regional genetic diversity.
Leslie Lyons, a professor of comparative medicine and a feline geneticist at the University of Michigan School of Veterinary Medicine, notes that unlike horses and cattle, which show multiple domestication events across regions, cat genetics strongly support domestication initiating in Mesopotamia before migration elsewhere.
Lyons, a researcher for more than thirty years, calls cats a “very special” animal. Beyond companionship, cats offer insights into genetics and disease that can illuminate human health. For example, polycystic kidney disease, certain forms of blindness, and dwarfism in cats provide models for studying similar conditions in people.
Comparative genetics and the broader concept of one health emphasize that discoveries in feline genetics can inform medical advances for humans. This collaborative approach, linking the health of animals and people, is increasingly central to modern biomedical research.
Earlier work by Lyons and colleagues, which completed a near-complete assembly of the cat genome, revealed that a cat’s genomic structure is very similar to that of humans compared with most other non-primate mammals. This similarity proves particularly useful when studying shared diseases across species.
This study’s reference is drawn from Nature and its accompanying research, which provides a deeper look into the domestication narrative and feline genetics. The broader implications underscore how genetic insights can influence veterinary science and human medicine alike.
In a broader sense, the research contributes to the understanding of how humans and domestic animals have co-evolved and how their genetic journeys mirror each other across history.
The ongoing exploration of the cat genome continues to illuminate the bonds between species and the ways in which one health perspectives can drive advances in medicine for both animals and people.