Did Neanderthals keep cats?

Question

DNA evidence shows that all cats are descended from five females from the Levant are, about 130,000 years ago!!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/jun/29/genetics.sciencenews

Or did humans just leave Africa much earlier than thought?

Answer 1

The fact that all modern domestic cats share  common mitochondrial DNA with ancestors 130,000 years ago in no way indicates that cats were domesticated back then.  Their coexistance with humans began as humans started to raise grain (since this attracted mice which attracted cats).  No wonder this began in the levant- that's where grain was first domesticated.

Neandertal remains have been found in the region, for example Shanidar Cave in Iraq and Tabun Cave in Israel, but thousands of years before domestication of plants or animals.  Wild felines would have had very little interest in Neandertals.

Where it says 130,000 years in the article sure looks like a typo to me.  They mean to say "13,000" probably, because they say that the evidence for domestication is 9,500 years old and researchers believe it may have occurred 3,000 years earlier, which would be  12,500 years ago, or around 13,000.  Certainly 130,000 seems pretty far off the mark when talking about domesticated anything.

Answer 2

The modern domestic cat was bred by the ancient Egyptians for their temples. That doesn't exclude them having kept an earlier existing kind,

Answer 3

"Domesticated" is an ill defined & relative term.  My 11 yr old son started feeding a coyote several years ago (he thought it was a dog).  This coyote will now take food from his hand & come when he calls it, but I would not call it domesticated, as some might.  He can touch it, but it is still a wild coyote, although somewhat aclimated to at least one human. I suspect man's relationship with both wolves & cats began much like this, but was accellerated when newborns were raised & selection began.

I agree with an earlier poster (Jones) on the misplaced decimal point.

Answer 4

Humans and cats may have left Africa that early, however human DNA was severely reduced about 70,000 years ago, due to a prolonged nuclear winter, which is why MOST all people alive to today, share very similar DNA.

Neandertals MAY have used dogs to hunt, however the first documented domestication of cats, is reported to have been in the Nile Valley, within the past 5,000 years, UNTIL NOW! Small cats were observed killing and eating poisonous serpents, as well as rodents which had invaded their granaries, and so became very popular companions.

Prior to that new date of 9500 BP, though cat remains have been found surrounding ancient settlements, so have dogs, and dogs were domesticated much, much earlier (Like in Neandertal times).

Where I live, Park Rangers regularly observe that Mountain Lions expand their hunting territory to within 100 yards of residential homes, and at night an occasional small pet may disappear, however that doesn't mean that these lions have been domesticated.

Even housecats have a relatively untamed instinct compared to dogs, possibly indicating a more recent marriage between "Man" and wild animal.

(Perhaps cats = 10,000 years, dogs = 100--150,000 years).

Answer 5

You anthropologist really parse deep time. What is " much earlier? "

130,000 ya. So, were they domesticated, or just ancestral?

Answer 6

hard to say, but i doubt it. cats would have no reason to move in with humanoid species until we began settling & farming, atttracting rodents & birds to our settlements. neanderthals were nomadic hunter/gatherers, i believe. a lifestyle more suited to the inclusion of dogs. though i also believe that it was homo sapiens (us) who domesticated dogs. neanderthals were a seperate sub-species of early man. i think they were smart enough to use & craft tools & fire, but to tame & utilise wild or semi-wild beasts? i don't think they had the capacity for this behaviour. will stand to be corrected.

Answer 7

With cats anything is possible!

I suppose its entirely possible one or two neanderthal clans may have adopted orphan stray felines .

What's the Neanderthal for

DaddyitscutedonchkillitIwannakeeptit!