Cats and humans have lived together for a long time. An abstract in Science (click here) reveals just how long that relationship has lasted and how successful it has been for both parties. A New York Times piece reviews the Science article.
Carlos A. Driscoll and his nine co-authors propose that all 600 million domestic cats in the world are the genetic descendants of five female cats from the Middle East who domesticated themselves about 10, 000 years ago. The domestic arrangement was beneficial to both cats and people. The fact that cats initiated the arrangement helps to explain, in part, why cats are so different from dogs.
The fact that cats are sedentary, our propensity to take our cats with us when we move, and the ease of identifying cat genes via their coats has revealed much about human population movements. See "Cats and commerce" in the November, 1977 Scientific American or "Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been" in the August, 1986 Natural History. Both those articles show how we can use our long relationship with cats to discover facts about ourselves (and them).
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