How did cats become domesticated?

Brut America

How did we go from a wild and solitary feline to this companion that shares millions of homes with us around the world?

Transcript

00:00It's 2001 on this mediterranean island. This is where archaeologists discover a very ancient human tomb.

00:06They find stone axe remains, some seashells, flint, and just a few inches away, they discover the bones of a small animal.

00:26This discovery seemed to be the oldest pet cat known to scientists.

00:30And that discovery helped revolutionize the understanding of one of our most loyal pets.

00:35Hi, it's Lucas. You may have a cat like this one at home.

00:38I was recently wondering how we went from a wild and solitary feline, like this one for example,

00:45to this companion who shares millions of households with us around the world.

00:49As you will see, this story differs greatly from that of other pets, like the dog for example.

01:00Expect many twists and turns, revealing a lot about our current cats and particularly about their brain size.

01:06For this new episode of The Big Explanation, I dug into the origins that hide behind the domestic cat.

01:12How and why it became one of our companions. Let me explain.

01:18According to the French Museum of Natural History, there are nearly 600 million domestic cats in the world.

01:24However, if we go back in time, well before year zero, there was a time when there was none.

01:30The beginning of this story has long remained a mystery.

01:35Do our cat breeds come from different ancestors or just one ancestor?

01:39So, which one would it be? Because in nature there are dozens of small feline species.

01:43And even among wild cats, those that are closest to domestic cats, for example the Asiatic wild cat in Central Asia,

01:51the European wild cat in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa wild cat or the Sub-Saharan wild cat.

01:58It was not until 2009 that genetic studies demonstrated that domestic cats all derive from a single wild cat, namely the African wild cat.

02:16As this cat was living in the wild in this area, it gave birth to all domestic cats.

02:20And that is something that started a very long time ago.

02:23This around 3500 BC. In northern China, cats were already living with humans at that time.

02:37Let's move to around 3700 BC. We are thousands of miles away from China in ancient Egypt.

02:42Most notably, in the city of Hierakonpolis, cats are buried in the prince's cemetery.

02:47Here too, cats will share the lives of different Egyptian societies.

02:52In this domestication, we have traces in the famous Egyptian sites.

02:56And there we find cat mummies. We can see that the cat had a very particular status.

03:02They are sold to pilgrims. So we raise cats, we massacre them horribly and without any respect for the animals.

03:09We make mummies to sell them to pilgrims.

03:11Let's go back another 5000 years, around 8800 BC in Cyprus. Cats are present in various villages.

03:17Cyprus is an island that emerged from the bottom of the oceans. There are no ancestors of cats in Cyprus.

03:21As soon as we find bones of cats in an archaeological site, it means that it was introduced from the continent.

03:25We can imagine that a cat with 70 km of arms is not very similar.

03:31It means that we introduced cats. It means that we had a relationship with the cat.

03:36And what fascinated me was that in these three places, Cyprus, China and Egypt, cats seem to have approached humans on their own.

03:42For these same reasons, when humans started farming or when they settled in early villages.

03:48Among the first animals that find a source of food in these villages, there are small ones, that is, monkeys and mice.

03:56In particular, what goes with the mouse is the cat, which is one of the main predators.

04:00All this forms a trinity with humans.

04:04Humans will finally tolerate the presence of the cat, which is still a wild animal.

04:10The cat will get used to the presence of humans because it has every interest, there is plenty to eat.

04:14And then the bonds will be forged.

04:16Jean-Denis Vigne found a particular trace demonstrating early cat-human relationships.

04:24Around 7000 BC, back in Cyprus, in the island's Neolithic village, Chilorocambos.

04:29This is where a tomb of a man and a cat was found.

04:32This discovery was made in 2001 during excavations by archaeologist Jean Guillon.

04:37To give us a better idea, I asked artificial intelligence to draw what it could look like.

04:44Alright, given the result, I think I'd better let Jean-Denis Vigne, who was involved in this discovery, explain what he takes from it.

04:50The cat and the man are complete, they look at each other, if we can say that.

04:55It's also a view of the mind, but they are arranged in a certain way.

04:58We can conclude that there was a privileged relationship between this man and this cat.

05:04Was this relationship real in everyday life?

05:06Yes, very likely, because we have, by analyzing the skeleton of the cat,

05:10we have shown that it is a young cat, which was better fed than the others.

05:13We can imagine that we have put in the tomb a representation of a domesticity relationship.

05:21The word that comes to us is animal of company.

05:24In Cyprus, and later in Egypt or China, as we said, how could this have happened?

05:28How did we go from a simple cat-human initial contact to a much stronger and closer relationship?

05:34There is an important link that will be, in the end, the transition to a domestic complicity.

05:41That is to say, in the end, that some cats are perhaps a little tame,

05:46or adopted when it comes to kittens by children, etc.

05:49And obviously, very quickly, all this has to happen.

05:53After that, the cat's next step would be to conquer the rest of the world.

05:59This will happen in roughly three stages.

06:01From around 5000 BC, cats would progressively arrive to Eastern Europe from the Near East,

06:06following the first Neolithic humans as part of the animals brought by early farmers.

06:10Were they fully domestic?

06:12Where did they live in the villages?

06:14Did people understand that it was important to take them with them?

06:16Or did they follow a little naturally? We don't know.

06:19But in any case, we find these cats.

06:21We find them fed, not only by mice, but also by the remains of human consumption.

06:49Wherever Western civilizations will settle, they will train the cat with them.

07:19This medium-haired cat is one of the oldest cat breeds.

07:22It's the Turkish Angora, originating from Turkey, as its name indicates.

07:26It was brought to Europe as early as the 17th century,

07:29but most other cat breeds are much more recent.

07:31Races don't appear like that on their own.

07:35It's the humans who created them, by making crossings,

07:40and by having fun in a certain way,

07:44and this dates back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

08:14Some of these hybrids, like the Savannah, are actually banned in certain countries.

08:17Today, there are over 60 official breeds of domestic cats.

08:21Let's have a look at what difference going from a wild animal to a domestic one has made for them,

08:25but also for us.

08:29We can say that this domestication has brought various benefits to humans,

08:33namely mice hunting or emotional bonds.

08:35According to Jean-Denis Vigne,

08:37this has also helped the African wildcat's descendants thrive more than they could have naturally.

08:42But this has changed the game for other animals.

08:58Domestication transformed the cat itself,

09:00even if at first glance, it is not easy to see some differences.

09:12The brain, from the beginning of domestication, is reduced.

09:15They no longer need to focus on an extremely difficult hunt.

09:22There is not only the modification of the fur or the size,

09:25but there are new behaviors in cats.

09:42In that group, you can find the ragdoll and the Persian cats.

09:45Group 3, with the Bengal for example, is more fearful and more extroverted.

09:50The last group is more aggressive and includes the Turkish Angora.

09:55The creation of cat breeds by humans has given rise to physical and behavioral differences.

10:00In particular, meowing and purring,

10:03which are sounds that wild cats can emit when they are very young,

10:08but which disappear in adulthood.

10:11In the new life of these domestic cats,

10:14a particular language is developed to communicate with humans.

10:18But in a way, we do not speak to our cats as we speak to us humans.

10:23So we have also developed a language, we have also developed behaviors.

10:41When we compare, for example, the great diversity of dog breeds

10:45compared to the wolf ancestor,

10:47it's huge, between the chihuahuas and the dogs, etc.

10:51In cats, there is still not such a strong diversity.

10:54Because there is this less biological plasticity,

10:57but also the fact that we never selected a cat not to bite.

11:03While dogs are selected not to bite.

11:06A cat that would have teeth as little developed as a chihuahua,

11:11he would not be able to catch mice,

11:14he would not be able to consume them, he would not be able to feed himself outside of humans.

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