I Bet You Want Someone To Eat All Those Tasty Rats For You

[robin_d_laws]

A new study tracing the DNA lineages of housecats reveals that the cat domesticated itself about ten thousand years ago, in the fertile crescent. All housecats descend from one of six female cats. The moment of domestication coincides with the beginnings of agriculture. Stored grain attracted rats and mice. Rats and mice attracted cats. Cats and

Comments

[thebitterguy]

That's a great picture. I love the sign.

[jbru]

Saw a Nova program that theorized that dog domestication occurred along with the development of human villages. Proto-dogs were attracted to our garbage and those that exhibited the shortest flight distance (i.e., let humans get closer before they ran and ran shorter distances away) got the best pick of what we threw away and flourished.

[janewilliams20]

The stored grain was stored in temples, wasn't it? I have hazy memories that the priesthood invented Riting and Rithmatic so they could keep track of who'd stored what.

No wonder cats expect to be worshipped.

Cats and fixed locations

[anonymous]

I understand that the Fertile Crescent was the place where people started living in one place and doing agriculture instead of being nomadic hunter/gatherers. Dogs will walk with nomads and follow them where they go. Cats won't. It makes sense that cat keeping started after people began to have fixed homes.

[doccross]

The Untold Story of how both cats and dogs became domesticated:

They saw a human rubbing his tummy. The cat and dog looked at each other and said "Oh yeah, we've got to get some of that tummy rub action". The rest is...well, prehistory.