Cat, human, who tamed the other first?

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The story between humans and cats is not new. Long before the time of the pharaohs, the little feline has made a place for itself among us. Today, there are nearly 600 million domestic cats in the world. In France, their population is estimated at 15 million, more than double the canine population.

11,000 Years With Us

For a long time, we believed that ancient Egypt , around 6,000 years ago, was the cradle of cat domestication . It must be admitted that archaeologists found them in all four corners of the pyramids. But nearly 20 years ago, excavations carried out in Cyprus , conducted in part under the impetus of the National Museum of Natural History, revealed a much more distant origin. Cats are said to have entered our lives more than 11,000 years ago. A historical leap of five millennia!

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The game of cat and mouse

The arrival of the cat among humans dates back to the beginnings of agriculture . The newly created grain stocks attract mice that settle near these new larders, veritable manna offered by humans. However, these rodents have natural predators: cats. The latter then make these inhabited spaces their new hunting ground. Who would complain? Neither humans nor felines who see this as a win-win relationship.

A close companion

The bonds that developed between cats and humans went beyond the purely utilitarian stage . The domesticated feline gained the status of a pet , with which we maintain a more intimate bond. And this, more than 9,000 years ago. In Cyprus, a tomb dating from 7,300 years BCE contains the remains of a young adult human and those of a cat whose larger than average size indicates that it was a feline rather better fed than its congeners. In addition, the bodies are not arranged haphazardly in the grave. They face each other. This position reinforces the idea of ​​the existence of a certain degree of familiarity between man and animal.