{"id":15237,"date":"2025-11-28T21:12:44","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T13:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=15237"},"modified":"2025-11-28T21:12:44","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T13:12:44","slug":"when-did-domestic-cats-arrive-in-europe-about-4000-years-later-than-previously-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=15237","title":{"rendered":"When did domestic cats arrive in Europe? About 4,000 years later than previously thought"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Whether they are Siamese, Persian, Maine Coon or domestic shorthair, there are hundreds of millions of cats living with people around the world. However, despite cats\u2019 popularity as pets, the history of their domestication has remained difficult for scientists to decipher.<\/p>\n

A new genome study is providing some insight by determining the timing of a key milestone in feline domestication: the introduction of domestic cats<\/span> into Europe from North Africa.<\/div>\n
Domestic cats are believed to have arrived in Europe roughly 2,000 years ago during the early Roman Empire, the researchers found, probably as a result of maritime trade<\/span>. Sailors may have brought some of these furry trailblazers to hunt mice on ships carrying grain from Egypt to ports serving Rome and other cities in the sprawling empire.<\/div>\n

The findings contradict a long-held idea that domestication occurred in prehistoric times, perhaps 6,000 to 7,000 years ago, as farmers from the ancient Near East and Middle East first moved into Europe, bringing cats with them.<\/p>\n

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A Siamese cat relaxes in its bed at the annual cat show in Del Mar, California, in 2015. Photo: Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWe show that the earliest domestic cat genomes in Europe are found from the Roman imperial period onwards,\u201d starting in the first century AD, said paleogeneticist Claudio Ottoni of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, lead author of the study published in the journal Science.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Whether they are Siamese, Persian, Maine Coon or domestic shorthair, there are hundreds of millions of cats living with people around the world. However, despite…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[10435,2249,1691,496,11124,1846,59],"class_list":["post-15237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-arrive","tag-cats","tag-domestic","tag-europe","tag-previously","tag-thought","tag-years","wpcat-33-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}