For thousands of years, we’ve shared our homes with cats, but the story of how these creatures became our companions is far more recent—and geographically specific—than previously believed. New scientific evidence reveals that the domestication of cats didn’t begin with the dawn of agriculture, but rather several millennia later, in northern Africa. This challenges long-held assumptions about the origins of our relationship with Felis catus.
The Shifting Timeline of Domestication
Until recently, researchers thought cats began their close association with humans around 10,000 years ago, alongside the first agricultural settlements in the Levant. However, a groundbreaking study analyzing ancient cat bones and DNA paints a different picture. Professor Greger Larson of the University of Oxford explains: “That relationship we have with cats now only gets started about 3.5 or 4,000 years ago.”
This timeline places the true start of cat domestication much closer to the rise of Egyptian civilization than to the earliest human settlements. All modern cats descend from the African wildcat, but their journey to our living rooms took a surprisingly long detour.
The Egyptian Connection
The evidence points strongly to northern Africa—specifically, ancient Egypt—as the birthplace of the domesticated cat. This aligns with historical records showing that Egyptians revered cats, depicting them in art and even preserving them as mummies. This reverence likely played a crucial role in fostering a closer relationship between humans and felines.
“Instead of happening in that area where people are first settling down with agriculture, it looks like it is much more of an Egyptian phenomenon,” Larson clarifies.
Once cats became valued companions in Egypt, they spread across the globe as prized ship cats and effective pest controllers. Their arrival in Europe was a much later event, around 2,000 years ago, facilitated by Roman trade routes and eventually spreading eastward along the Silk Road into China.
The Unexpected Role of Leopard Cats in China
Interestingly, the story doesn’t end there. Researchers also uncovered evidence of an earlier, though different, human-cat relationship in China. Leopard cats—small, wild felines with distinctive spotted coats—coexisted with humans in Chinese settlements as early as 3,500 years ago.
However, this relationship was not one of domestication, but rather commensalism: a mutually beneficial but non-dependent coexistence. Professor Shu-Jin Luo of Peking University explains that leopard cats benefited from living near humans for easy access to rodents, while humans likely welcomed them as natural pest control.
The Takeaway
The narrative surrounding cat domestication has been rewritten. The story isn’t about an ancient, gradual process, but rather a relatively recent shift rooted in Egyptian culture. Cats didn’t simply decide to join us millennia ago; they entered our lives on their own terms, much later than we thought, and in a way that continues to surprise scientists today. The discovery of the leopard cat relationship adds another layer of complexity to this story, reminding us that human-animal bonds can take many forms.
