The breeding of the first domestic cats began 12,000 years ago. "Fertile Crescent near present-day Iraq

A new genetic study shows that the domestication of cats took place 12,000 years ago and that it is related to the relationship between humans and cats, which likely resulted from a change in the lifestyle of our ancestors.

The announcement comes from scientists at the University of Missouri, who have discovered that people first welcomed pets in the Fertile Crescent, regions of the Middle East surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in order to control pests in their new settlements.

A new study by feline geneticists has found that an important shift in lifestyle, from hunting to farming, was the catalyst that led to the world’s first domestication of cats, but the connection began when humans began to travel the world and bring back animals. with them Their new feline friends.

And unlike horses and cattle, with their different domestication events, cats seem to be the only animals that were domesticated as a result of a single event and location.

The Fertile Crescent is a crescent-shaped region in the Middle East, extending from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan, as well as the northern region of Kuwait, southeastern Turkey, and western Iran.

Thousands of years ago, the ancient Sumerians – the oldest known civilization of ancient Mesopotamia – were supposed to be the first human civilization in the world. 10,000 years ago, this civilization began to lead a sedentary lifestyle.

For the new study, an international team of scientists examined the genotypes of more than 1,000 randomly bred cats from Europe, Asia and Africa, mostly of Eurasian origin, as well as four African wild cats and 10 suspected wild cats and European hybrids. Nearly 200 genetic markers have established links between regions and races.

“One of the key DNA markers we studied was short, synonymous repeats that mutate very quickly and give us a clue to understanding modern cat populations and the evolution of reproduction over their ancient history several thousand years ago,” says Leslie A. Lyons. , a feline geneticist at the University. Missouri,” the statement said.

Another important DNA marker that we investigated was single nucleotide polymorphisms, which are single nucleotide changes throughout the genome that give us clues to its ancient history dating back several thousand years.

By studying and comparing both traits, we can begin to piece together the evolutionary history of cats.

The randomly bred cats represented over 40 countries, including over 85 sampling sites, but most of them were concentrated in the Middle East region.

The results showed the origin of domestic cats, which were born in the eastern Mediterranean basin, then spread to neighboring islands and traveled south across the Levantine coast into the Nile Valley.

According to a study published in the journal Nature, this follows the same migration pattern as ancient humans. As soon as people began to spread out of the Fertile Crescent region, cats began to spread throughout the world.

Cats migrated to Europe and east of the Fertile Crescent along with agricultural and commercial growth.

From Europe, cats were transported by ship to America.

Source: Daily Mail

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