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Ancient Genomes Recast Cat Domestication: Europe’s Housecats Arrived From North Africa in Roman Times

Nuclear DNA analysis overturns mtDNA-based assumptions by distinguishing tamed European wildcats from the true domestic lineage.

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Ein junge Katze spielt in einer Wohnung.
Die Hauskatze kam erst vor rund 2000 Jahren aus Nordafrika nach Europa und damit später als gedacht. Das zeigen Genanalysen von Katzenfunden aus knapp hundert archäologischen Fundstätten in Europa und Anatolien in der Türkei.
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Overview

  • An international team reports in Science that modern European housecats descend from North African wildcats rather than Near Eastern populations.
  • The earliest confirmed domestic-lineage cat in Europe appears on Sardinia about 2,200 years ago, consistent with Phoenician maritime contacts.
  • Mainland Europe shows the domestic lineage only in the Roman period, with the oldest specimen dated to roughly 50 BCE–80 CE in Austria.
  • Ancient nuclear genomes reveal many purported Neolithic ‘housecats’ in Europe and Anatolia were European wildcats or hybrids that left little trace in today’s cats.
  • The study identifies two distinct North African lineages, one tied to Sardinia and another that spread across the continent in Roman times, and researchers plan further work to pinpoint domestication locales in North Africa.