Cats have been around for millions of years in various forms, but have not been our close companions until fairly recently. Oh, certainly we have had cats in our yards, barns and even our homes for thousands of years, but we have not considered them our pets and precious companions until the last few hundred years.
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History agrees that cats and dogs, as well as most carnivores, have a common ancestor, the miacis , a weasel like creature that lived some 40 -50 million years ago:
This image makes them look vaguely cat-like and fox-like, even a bit racoonish. There appear to be no hooves, but do have paws and nails.
It does seem that cats have existed in the form of cats longer than dogs. The Smilodon was one of the large cats that lived millions of years ago:
The Smilodon is a type of large sabre toothed cat that lived approximately 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago. It likely hunted in packs and due to brittle teeth and weak jaws, it hunted from trees which gave them an advantage over their prey.
One of the most fascinating facts about Smilodon is that while it is often referred to as a saber-toothed tiger, it really wasn’t a tiger. No, tigers are in fact descended from the Panthera tigris family. Smilodon is actually distantly related to modern lions and cheetahs.
We next hear of cats as a much smaller but still wild animal that ole sabre-tooth. They pop up about 12,000 years ago. They seem to be descended from the genus Felis silvestris, which simply means “cat of the woods”:
Recently, several species of wildcats have been noted in different parts of the world. Asia, India, Africa all have their versions of wildcats. If you are interested in a deeper study, please go here. It is thought that these wildcats roamed at the edges of societies that were just discovering agricultural advantages and beginning to plant and harvest as well as husband domestic animals such as cattle and goats. Cats would have found plenty to feed themselves on due to the proliferation of rats and mice that came with agriculture.
When humans were predominantly hunters, dogs were of great use, and thus were domesticated long before cats. Cats, on the other hand, only became useful to people when we began to settle down, till the earth and—crucially—store surplus crops. With grain stores came mice, and when the first wild cats wandered into town, the stage was set for what the Science study authors call “one of the more successful ‘biological experiments’ ever undertaken.” The cats were delighted by the abundance of prey in the storehouses; people were delighted by the pest control.
www.smithsonianmag.com/...
Cats eventually domesticated themselves. It is believed they simply invited themselves in to grain stores, barns and outbuildings and eventually homes.
By 5,000 years ago, cats were an accepted part of households, and in some civilizations, they were revered! In Egypt, cats were used to hunt fish and birds as well protect grains. They were elevated to the status of gods. A god named Bastet (sometimes also named Bast) was depicted as a human figure with the head of a cat:
They even mummified their cats after death. There was a cat cemetery found in Beni-Hassan in Egypt with over 300,000 mummified cat remains. It was illegal to kill a cat in Egypt and could actually be a death sentence to the perpetrator.
Even the Romans revered cats. They appreciated all that cats did for them. They saw them as exotic pets and sacred animals. They were allowed to prowl the temples freely and one was depicted at the feet of Libertas ( god of Liberty) and another with the Goddess Diana, the Huntress:
Diana was often associated with the Egyptian Goddess Bast, a feline goddess who was (amongst other things) a guardian of the home and family and like the Egyptians, the Romans considered that their cats represented the warmth and safety of home. Sacrifices were made to their cats during both funeral and wedding celebrations to get the cat to bless the participants. Cats often acted as mascots and travelling companions for Roman armies whose grain stores the cats would protect.
felineforever.com/...
By the Middle Ages in Europe, something happened, though. Cats were seen as “familiars” and attached to witches. Seen as evil, they were supposed to be imbued with black magic and were hunted down and killed. Often tortured and burnt alive during religious feast days ( Holy days). It is likely these atrocities that led to another one: the Plague. Without cats to control the rat population, rats quickly over-bred and became vectors for spreading the Plague and then other epidemics.
But, eventually, by the 17th century, cats came back into favour again and some people actually bred them, and they became household pets. In the 18th century, there were even cat shows in Britain and the US, and the breeding of particular attributes, such as long hair, became fashionable.
A History of Cats: www.smithsonianmag.com/…
Next Sundae will be Part II of this fascinating subject. Please tune in...same Bat time, same Bat channel.