Ancient Cypriot may have been a cat lover

Humans may have been calling “Here, kitty, kitty” for more than 9,000 years, according to a study published today in the journal Science.

Within a prehistoric village on the island of Cyprus, French archaeologists have found the skeleton of a cat buried beside a 9,500-year-old human grave, suggesting the two were buried together to commemorate a particularly close relationship.

The discovery not only implies that cat domestication began about 5,000 years earlier than previously thought, but also threatens to unseat the cat-venerating Egyptians, who even mummified their pets, as the trend setters of early taming.

“The burial of a complete cat without any signs of butchering reminds us of human burials and emphasizes the animal as an individual,” writes Jean-Denis Vigne, an archaeologist at the Natural History Museum in Paris, and his colleagues. Degeneration of the cat’s skeleton prevented direct dating by radiocarbon methods. But the authors argue that its size, location, and state of preservation all link it to a human burial 16 inches away and filled with offerings such as polished stones, axes, ochre, and flint tools.

Despite the study’s failure to date the cat’s skeleton directly, zoo archaeologist Melinda Zeder at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., said its intentional placement with the human burial provides good evidence for taming.

“In lieu of finding a bell around its neck, this is about as solid evidence as one can have that cats held a special place in the lives, and afterlives, of residents of this site,” she said in a written statement.

Researchers believe early colonists of Cyprus introduced cats and a menagerie of other animals such as sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, deer and foxes to the island, whether to hunt, tame or domesticate as livestock. “It’s almost this ancient laboratory setting to watch the relationship play out between humans and this variety of animal species,” said Zeder in an interview.

But the early colonists of Cyprus were likely not alone in their affection, or at least respect, for the furry feline known as Felis silvestris.

When humans began establishing settlements, they unintentionally lured wildlife into symbiotic relationships, or ones in which animals essentially tamed themselves through an attraction to stored or discarded human food. The remains of mice and sparrows, in fact, have been used as markers for early human settlements in Israel about 12,000 to 13,000 years ago.

“And that’s where we’re thinking dog domestication comes in,” Zeder said. “It’s really the tamer wolves scavenging on human refuse.”

With human habitations acting as magnets to all sorts of animals, the boldest wildcats may have moved in to take advantage of a “bonanza” of mice, birds and other food, she said. The process of cat taming could have followed as humans recognized the advantage of having cats protect foods such as cereal grains from other encroaching critters.

In the ancient Cyprus village of Shillourokambos, Zeder said, “finding a few cat bones in this site wouldn’t have meant anything.” Evidence of the human-associated burial, however, suggests that at least one feline may have meant much, much more to an early cat admirer.