Cat My life is ruled by a tiny furry overlord Shirt
SMARTNEWS HISTORY SCIENCE INGENUITY ARTS & CULTURE TRAVEL AT THE SMITHSONIAN PHOTOS VIDEO GAMES SUBSCRIBE SHOPSmithsonian MagazineSUBSCRIBE SMARTNEWS HISTORY SCIENCE INGENUITY ARTS & CULTURE TRAVEL AT THE SMITHSONIAN SHOP ARCHAEOLOGY U.S. HISTORY WORLD HISTORY VIDEO NEWSLETTERA Brief History of House CatIt may be that “nobody owns a cat,” but scientists now say the popular pet has lived with people for 12,000 yearIn the United States, cats are the most popular house pet, with about 90 million domesticatedcats slinking around 34 percent of U.S. homes.In the United States, cats are the most popular house pet, with about 90million domesticated catsslinking around 34 percent of U.S. homes. (WikipediaBy David ZaxSMITHSONIANMAG.COJUNE 30, 2007.6K9717On any of the surprising number of Web sites dedicated entirely to wisdom about cats, one will find quotations like these: “As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat” (attributed to Ellen Perry Berkeley); “The phrase ‘domestic cat’ is an oxymoron” (attributed to George F. Will); and “A dog is a man’s best friend. A cat is a cat’s best friend” (attributed to Robet J. Vogel). Of course, there is such a thing as the domestic cat, and cats and humans have enjoyed a mostly symbiotic relationship for thousands of years. But the quips do illuminate a very real ambivalence in the long relationship between cats and humans, as this history of the house cat shows.
Cat My life is ruled by a tiny furry overlord Shirt
It has taken a while for scientists to piece together the riddle of just when and where cats first became domesticated. One would think that the archaeological record might answer the question easily, but wild cats and domesticated cats have remarkably similar skeletons, complicating the matter. Some clues first came from the island of Cyprus in 1983, when archaeologists found a cat’s jawbone dating back 8,000 years. Since it seemed highly unlikely that humans would have brought wild cats over to the island (a “spitting, scratching, panic-stricken wild feline would have been the last kind of boat companion they would have wanted,” writes Desmond Morris in Catworld: A Feline Encyclopedia), the finding suggested that domestication occurred before 8,000 years ago.