Scientists identify Tunisia as cradle of domestic cats, challenging previous findings

Everything we know about the origin of the domestic cat could prove wrong, as researchers have uncovered that it’s more likely it hails from Tunisia based on extensive genetic data and archaeological evidence, challenging their European descent.

Indeed, two new wide-reaching studies, one by the University of Rome Tor Vergata in collaboration with 42 institutions and another led by the University of Exeter with contributors from 37 organizations, have determined that the actual history is more complicated than thought, Phys.org reported on April 16.

As it happens, both investigations into the origins of the beloved housepet have pointed to Tunisia, challenging the timeline of European domestic cats, and hinting at cultural and religious factors as critical in driving feline domestication and movement.

University of Rome Tor Vergata study

Specifically, the study led by the University of Rome Tor Vergata has discovered through nuclear DNA analyses that domestic cats only appeared in Europe from around the first century CE onward, thousands of years later than what traditional narratives have suggested.

At the same time, they noted two introductory waves, an earlier one that brought wildcats from Northwest Africa to Sardinia by the second century BCE and the subsequent one, during the Roman Imperial era that introduced cats genetically close to modern domestic lines across Europe, with Unisia as a key center of early domestication.

University of Exeter study of domestic cats

Meanwhile, the University of Exeter-led study has presented a slightly different timeline in which domestic cats had already appeared in Europe by the early first millennium BCE, before the peak of the Roman expansion.

Based on the discovery of distinct mitochondrial haplogroups in Britain by the fourth to second centuries BCE, the analysis suggests Iron Age contact, with following waves of introduction during the Roman, Late Antique, and Viking periods, also suggesting Tunisia as the origin point.

Earlier findings

Previously, the narrative mainly revolved around a synergistic relationship in which cats acted as a means of rodent control around human populations and grain stores, but now religious and cultural dimensions have emerged to have driven human interest in cats.

This ranges from Egypt appreciating cats in connection with deities like Bastet, Greeks and Romans seeing them as symbols of Artemis and Diana, as well as Norse mythology featuring cats linked to the goddess Freyja, all of which helped cats spread across wider geographies.

All things considered, although the authors of the two latest studies don’t necessarily see eye to eye on proposed arrival dates and dispersal routes, they do agree on one thing – the domestication and spread of cats in Europe has occurred more recently and under more culturally relevant circumstances than previously thought.

They also provide evidence against the idea that cats were present in Neolithic settlements and illustrate the drawbacks of relying exclusively on mitochondrial markers in tracing back the origins of domestic felines, which have originally portrayed them as silent followers of early farmers.