How did we go from a wild and solitary feline to this companion that shares millions of homes with us around the world? 🐈
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AnimalsTranscript
00:00It's 2001 on this mediterranean island. This is where archaeologists discover a very ancient human tomb.
00:06They find stone axe remains, some seashells, flint, and just a few inches away, they discover the bones of a small animal.
00:26This discovery seemed to be the oldest pet cat known to scientists.
00:30And that discovery helped revolutionize the understanding of one of our most loyal pets.
00:35Hi, it's Lucas. You may have a cat like this one at home.
00:38I was recently wondering how we went from a wild and solitary feline, like this one for example,
00:45to this companion who shares millions of households with us around the world.
00:49As you will see, this story differs greatly from that of other pets, like the dog for example.
01:00Expect many twists and turns, revealing a lot about our current cats and particularly about their brain size.
01:06For this new episode of The Big Explanation, I dug into the origins that hide behind the domestic cat.
01:12How and why it became one of our companions. Let me explain.
01:18According to the French Museum of Natural History, there are nearly 600 million domestic cats in the world.
01:24However, if we go back in time, well before year zero, there was a time when there was none.
01:30The beginning of this story has long remained a mystery.
01:35Do our cat breeds come from different ancestors or just one ancestor?
01:39So, which one would it be? Because in nature there are dozens of small feline species.
01:43And even among wild cats, those that are closest to domestic cats, for example the Asiatic wild cat in Central Asia,
01:51the European wild cat in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa wild cat or the Sub-Saharan wild cat.
01:58It was not until 2009 that genetic studies demonstrated that domestic cats all derive from a single wild cat, namely the African wild cat.
02:16As this cat was living in the wild in this area, it gave birth to all domestic cats.
02:20And that is something that started a very long time ago.
02:23This around 3500 BC. In northern China, cats were already living with humans at that time.
02:37Let's move to around 3700 BC. We are thousands of miles away from China in ancient Egypt.
02:42Most notably, in the city of Hierakonpolis, cats are buried in the prince's cemetery.
02:47Here too, cats will share the lives of different Egyptian societies.
02:52In this domestication, we have traces in the famous Egyptian sites.
02:56And there we find cat mummies. We can see that the cat had a very particular status.
03:02They are sold to pilgrims. So we raise cats, we massacre them horribly and without any respect for the animals.
03:09We make mummies to sell them to pilgrims.
03:11Let's go back another 5000 years, around 8800 BC in Cyprus. Cats are present in various villages.
03:17Cyprus is an island that emerged from the bottom of the oceans. There are no ancestors of cats in Cyprus.
03:21As soon as we find bones of cats in an archaeological site, it means that it was introduced from the continent.
03:25We can imagine that a cat with 70 km of arms is not very similar.
03:31It means that we introduced cats. It means that we had a relationship with the cat.
03:36And what fascinated me was that in these three places, Cyprus, China and Egypt, cats seem to have approached humans on their own.
03:42For these same reasons, when humans started farming or when they settled in early villages.
03:48Among the first animals that find a source of food in these villages, there are small ones, that is, monkeys and mice.
03:56In particular, what goes with the mouse is the cat, which is one of the main predators.
04:00All this forms a trinity with humans.
04:04Humans will finally tolerate the presence of the cat, which is still a wild animal.
04:10The cat will get used to the presence of humans because it has every interest, there is plenty to eat.
04:14And then the bonds will be forged.
04:16Jean-Denis Vigne found a particular trace demonstrating early cat-human relationships.
04:24Around 7000 BC, back in Cyprus, in the island's Neolithic village, Chilorocambos.
04:29This is where a tomb of a man and a cat was found.
04:32This discovery was made in 2001 during excavations by archaeologist Jean Guillon.
04:37To give us a better idea, I asked artificial intelligence to draw what it could look like.
04:44Alright, given the result, I think I'd better let Jean-Denis Vigne, who was involved in this discovery, explain what he takes from it.
04:50The cat and the man are complete, they look at each other, if we can say that.
04:55It's also a view of the mind, but they are arranged in a certain way.
04:58We can conclude that there was a privileged relationship between this man and this cat.
05:04Was this relationship real in everyday life?
05:06Yes, very likely, because we have, by analyzing the skeleton of the cat,
05:10we have shown that it is a young cat, which was better fed than the others.
05:13We can imagine that we have put in the tomb a representation of a domesticity relationship.
05:21The word that comes to us is animal of company.
05:24In Cyprus, and later in Egypt or China, as we said, how could this have happened?
05:28How did we go from a simple cat-human initial contact to a much stronger and closer relationship?
05:34There is an important link that will be, in the end, the transition to a domestic complicity.
05:41That is to say, in the end, that some cats are perhaps a little tame,
05:46or adopted when it comes to kittens by children, etc.
05:49And obviously, very quickly, all this has to happen.
05:53After that, the cat's next step would be to conquer the rest of the world.
05:59This will happen in roughly three stages.
06:01From around 5000 BC, cats would progressively arrive to Eastern Europe from the Near East,
06:06following the first Neolithic humans as part of the animals brought by early farmers.
06:10Were they fully domestic?
06:12Where did they live in the villages?
06:14Did people understand that it was important to take them with them?
06:16Or did they follow a little naturally? We don't know.
06:19But in any case, we find these cats.
06:21We find them fed, not only by mice, but also by the remains of human consumption.
06:49Wherever Western civilizations will settle, they will train the cat with them.
07:19This medium-haired cat is one of the oldest cat breeds.
07:22It's the Turkish Angora, originating from Turkey, as its name indicates.
07:26It was brought to Europe as early as the 17th century,
07:29but most other cat breeds are much more recent.
07:31Races don't appear like that on their own.
07:35It's the humans who created them, by making crossings,
07:40and by having fun in a certain way,
07:44and this dates back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
08:14Some of these hybrids, like the Savannah, are actually banned in certain countries.
08:17Today, there are over 60 official breeds of domestic cats.
08:21Let's have a look at what difference going from a wild animal to a domestic one has made for them,
08:25but also for us.
08:29We can say that this domestication has brought various benefits to humans,
08:33namely mice hunting or emotional bonds.
08:35According to Jean-Denis Vigne,
08:37this has also helped the African wildcat's descendants thrive more than they could have naturally.
08:42But this has changed the game for other animals.
08:58Domestication transformed the cat itself,
09:00even if at first glance, it is not easy to see some differences.
09:12The brain, from the beginning of domestication, is reduced.
09:15They no longer need to focus on an extremely difficult hunt.
09:22There is not only the modification of the fur or the size,
09:25but there are new behaviors in cats.
09:42In that group, you can find the ragdoll and the Persian cats.
09:45Group 3, with the Bengal for example, is more fearful and more extroverted.
09:50The last group is more aggressive and includes the Turkish Angora.
09:55The creation of cat breeds by humans has given rise to physical and behavioral differences.
10:00In particular, meowing and purring,
10:03which are sounds that wild cats can emit when they are very young,
10:08but which disappear in adulthood.
10:11In the new life of these domestic cats,
10:14a particular language is developed to communicate with humans.
10:18But in a way, we do not speak to our cats as we speak to us humans.
10:23So we have also developed a language, we have also developed behaviors.
10:41When we compare, for example, the great diversity of dog breeds
10:45compared to the wolf ancestor,
10:47it's huge, between the chihuahuas and the dogs, etc.
10:51In cats, there is still not such a strong diversity.
10:54Because there is this less biological plasticity,
10:57but also the fact that we never selected a cat not to bite.
11:03While dogs are selected not to bite.
11:06A cat that would have teeth as little developed as a chihuahua,
11:11he would not be able to catch mice,
11:14he would not be able to consume them, he would not be able to feed himself outside of humans.