Cats and humans: a short history of living together

It probably started with mice

Nobody sat down and decided to tame the cat. The most likely story is that when people began farming and storing grain in the Near East, the stores drew mice, and the mice drew wildcats. People had no reason to chase off an animal that kept the pests down. Over many generations, the bolder and calmer cats did best living near us.

The domestic cat descends from the African wildcat, and in many ways cats have changed less from their wild ancestors than dogs have.

A cat buried in Cyprus

One of the earliest signs of a close bond comes from Shillourokambos in Cyprus. In 2004, archaeologists reported a grave around 9,500 years old where a person had been buried with a young cat, about eight months old, lying close by. Cats are not native to Cyprus, so people must have brought them over by boat. That does not prove the cat was a pet in our sense, but it does suggest it mattered to someone.

Egypt

Ancient Egypt is where cats became famous. They appear in paintings of home life, sitting under chairs and hunting birds in the marshes. The goddess Bastet was linked with cats, and huge numbers of cats were mummified and offered at her temples, especially in later periods.

The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that when a household cat died, the family shaved their eyebrows as a sign of mourning. It is a small detail, but it says a lot about how some people felt about their cats.

Ships and trade

Cats travelled with traders and sailors, keeping rodents away from food and cargo. That is a big part of how they spread across Europe, Asia and eventually the rest of the world, including Australia, where they arrived with European ships.

Medieval Europe

In parts of medieval Europe, cats were linked in some stories and sermons with witchcraft and bad luck, and there were times and places where they were treated cruelly. It is often said that killing cats led to the rat population that spread the Black Death. That makes a neat story, but historians do not treat it as established fact. Plague spread in complex ways, and the idea is better seen as a popular myth.

At the same time, cats kept working on farms, in homes and in monasteries, where at least one Irish monk wrote a well-known poem about his white cat, Pangur Bán, around the 800s.

Cats in palaces and parlours

By the 1700s and 1800s, cats were increasingly kept as companions as well as mousers, including in grand houses. Plenty of stories about famous people and their cats from this time are legends rather than history, so it is worth treating them with a smile rather than as fact.

In 1871, the first big organised cat show was held at the Crystal Palace in London. It helped turn cats into animals people bred, showed and fussed over, and it helped start the idea of cat breeds as we know them.

Cats on screen and on islands

Felix the Cat first appeared in 1919, during the silent film era, and became one of the first cartoon stars. Cats have been on screens ever since, and now fill a fair share of the internet.

In Japan, Tashirojima is known as "cat island". Cats were once encouraged there because they kept mice away from silkworms, and today they far outnumber the people living on the island.

Why we still live together

Research into the health effects of living with pets is mixed, and it is easy to overstate. What is easier to say is that many people simply enjoy their cats: the company, the routines, the warm weight on a lap. After thousands of years, that seems reason enough.

Related reading: Thor and the cat he couldn't lift and Ship's cats and harbour towns.