First Feline Friends

Ask, Sep 2004 by Dorman, Meg

In the April issue of Ask we said that cats first became pets in Egypt about 5,500 years ago. Well, we take that back. On the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea, archaeologists have found a 9,500-year-old grave of a person buried next to what seems to be world's oldest pet cat.

Since there were no native cats on Cyprus, human settlers probably brought cats with them from the mainland to control the mice that were feasting on farmers' grain. But were these cats tame pets or wild? Scientists who had previously found cat bones on Cyprus had no way to tell. In the recently uncovered grave, however, the cat and the person were buried close together, which suggests the cat was a favorite pet, not just a mobile mousetrap.

-Meg Dorman