06/02/2026
An interesting video on the history of cats! Apparently there were two waves of domestication - 6,000 years apart. The Egyptian domestication, which was believed to be the origin story, is actually the 2nd wave. The first wave in 9,500 BC, was in the Levant area, where the first human farming began. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement - cats tolerated and lived near humans to access the rodents that were going after the stored grains. By the medieval period, the Egyptian lineage had replaced or merged with the older Levantine lineage. Almost every modern cat today contains DNA from both waves. Cats are the only "domestic" animal who escaped genetic engineering by humans in 9,000 years - compared to dogs, cattle, sheep, etc. The "new" breeds (Ragdolls, Himalayan, Siamese, etc) are only a product of the 19th century. Shame on those who label "ferals" as others and not worthy of life!
Ancient DNA extracted from 209 cats buried across nine thousand years of human history produced one of the most overturning findings in the field of animal d...
