The palaeogenetics of cat dispersal in the ancient world

Abstract

The cat has long been important to human societies as a pest-control agent, object of symbolic value and companion animal, but little is known about its domestication process and early anthropogenic dispersal. Here we show, using ancient DNA analysis of geographically and temporally widespread archaeological cat remains, that both the Near Eastern and Egyptian populations of Felis silvestris lybica contributed to the gene pool of the domestic cat at different historical times. While the cat's worldwide conquest began during the Neolithic period in the Near East, its dispersal gained momentum during the Classical period, when the Egyptian cat successfully spread throughout the Old World. The expansion patterns and ranges suggest dispersal along human maritime and terrestrial routes of trade and connectivity. A coat-colour variant was found at high frequency only after the Middle Ages, suggesting that directed breeding of cats occurred later than with most other domesticated animals.

Human mediated dispersal of cats in the Neolithic Central Europe

“…1). Within sublineage A a branch recently marked A1 by (Ottoni et al , 2017) was observed with moderate support values. Phylogenetic analyses confirmed the initial subspecies assignation and 11 samples were classified as F. s. lybica/catus and seven as F. s. silvestris (Fig.…”

“…Lineage A was the main lineage which was domesticated in the Near East and which is the most frequent lineage in recent domestic cats. Individual belonging to this lineage was reported in Early Neolithic Bulgaria around 6 400 years BP, what was also interpreted as a result of human mediated dispersal (Ottoni et al , 2017). Lineage B, the second domesticated lineage was found so far only in Southeast Anatolia, Jordan and Iran.…”

“…Such mito-nuclear discordance was interpreted as a result of hybridization event between wildcat subspecies that might have taken place shortly after the domestic cats were brought into the range of European wildcats. Recently, F. s. lybica haplotypes were found also in pre-Neolithic Romania those individuals belonged exclusively to mitochondrial lineage A1 (Ottoni et al , 2017). This finding led authors to conclusion that since the beginning of Holocene the natural range of Near Eastern wildcats was wider and included also Southeastern Europe, which became also a historical hybrid zone for European and Near Eastern wildcats.…”

“…Lineage B, the second domesticated lineage was found so far only in Southeast Anatolia, Jordan and Iran. Given that in the dataset by Ottoni et al (2017) there is no a single instance of European wildcat in Anatolia, it’s unlikely that presence of those lineages in Central Europe may have resulted from introgression between Felis subspecies. This suggests rather a scenario where the Near Eastern wildcats spread together with early farmers from Anatolia first to Southeast Europe where they crossbreed with local population and acquired lineage A1 and then further northwest to Central Europe.…”

“…The descendants of the domesticated Near Eastern wildcats were later spread across the world along with civilization expansion. Recently, analysis of mtDNA from more than 200 Felis remains revealed that cats were domesticated from at least two different local populations of the Near Eastern wildcats, for the first time in the Near East and for the second in Ancient Egypt (Ottoni et al , 2017).…”