FLICKR, PHIL ROEDER
Though the domestication of dogs has been well studied, much less is known about how cats came to cohabitate with humans. Scientists have suggested that wild cats became a part of early agricultural societies based on their attraction to the rodents that fed on stored grain. Now researchers have examined cat bones found in the early agricultural village of Quanhucun in China and suggested that cats likely did become domesticated through a commensal process. Their work was published yesterday (December 16) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The team of Chinese and American scientists found evidence of rodents and eight felid bones at an archeological site in Quanhucun, China. They carbon dated two cat skeletal samples and showed that they spanned a two ...
