November 28, 2025
Hiss-tory gets a rewrite
Cats became our companions way later than you think
Turns out cats waited millennia to pick us — commenters say dogs did the work
TLDR: Scientists say cats bonded with humans about 4,000 years ago in northern Africa, not 10,000 years in the Levant. Comments split between “cats waited for farms and pests” and “show me better evidence,” with jokes that cats domesticated us—explaining why this reshapes our pet history and internet royalty.
New DNA from ancient cat bones says our whiskered overlords only started getting cozy with humans about 3.5–4,000 years ago, likely in northern Africa — not 10,000 years ago in the Levant. Professor Greger Larson of Oxford even calls it an “Egyptian phenomenon,” which instantly turned the comments into a hiss-fest. The study also suggests cats reached Europe only ~2,000 years ago, hitching rides with Romans and ships, and that China had a different cat vibe earlier: leopard cats living alongside people as pest control. That’s a lot of feline plot twists, and the community absolutely sharpened their claws.
Strong takes flew: ginko challenged the premise, asking why anyone assumed a 10,000‑year timeline. rjsw and wtcactus argued cats were useless to nomads while dogs hauled, hunted, and guarded; only farming made cats indispensable as rodent assassins. Anecdotes brought the laughs: swader999 said even a single cat needs years to “warm up,” and wtcactus painted a cinematic scene of a scraggly black cat staking out a sewer like Batman. Skeptics like moi2388 poked the science, asking if bones and Egyptian burials really prove timing. Meme-energy peaked with the classic punchline: maybe cats didn’t get domesticated — maybe they domesticated us. BBC report. Anyway.
Key Points
- •Ancient DNA from cat bones across Europe, North Africa, and Anatolia indicates domestication began ~3,500–4,000 years ago in northern Africa, not 10,000 years ago in the Levant.
- •The findings align with Egypt’s cultural reverence for cats, suggesting domestication was largely an Egyptian phenomenon.
- •Cats reached Europe about 2,000 years ago, accompanying Romans, and later spread east along the Silk Road into China.
- •Domestic cats now occur worldwide except Antarctica, reflecting rapid historical dispersal after becoming associated with humans.
- •Leopard cats in China had a commensal relationship with humans for ~3,500 years before domestic cats arrived, evidenced by archaeological finds such as a Han-dynasty tomb skull.