First Hard Evidence for the Process of Cat Domestication

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First Hard Evidence for the Process of Cat Domestication

Posted by Unknown on Monday December 16, 2013 @08:04PM from the mittens-will-eat-you-when-you-die dept.

sciencehabit writes "Cats have been part of human society for nearly 10,000 years, but they weren't always string-chasers and lap-sitters. Ancient felines hunted crop-destroying rats and mice for early farmers, and in return we provided food and protection. At least that's what scientists have long speculated. Now, they can back it up. Cat bones unearthed in a 5000-year-old Chinese farming village indicate that the animals consumed rodents and that some may have been cared for by humans. The findings provide the earliest hard evidence of this mutually beneficial relationship between man and cat."

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Backwards by AmiMoJo · 2013-12-16 20:14 · Score: 5, Funny

These guys have it the wrong way around. Humans didn't domesticate cats, cats domesticated humans. Within about half an hour of yge first cat realizing it could get foods and grooming from a human just by looking cute and rubbing against their legs every nowand then it made the human its servant and lived a life of leisure. I bet it never bothered to kill anything that wasn't within a law's length of it again.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
1. Re:Backwards by AmiMoJo · 2013-12-16 20:42 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  I must apologize for the above post. I'd like to claim that a cat walked over my keyboard but the reality is that autocorrect did its usual amazing job.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
2. Re:Backwards by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · 2013-12-16 20:52 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  You may be more right than you think: a scientist has proposed the theory that toxoplasmosis carried by cats affects everything we feel and do.
  
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  "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
3. Re: Backwards by KiloByte · 2013-12-17 02:08 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Oh dear god, only the insane idiot would want to keep intact female cats. The incessant yowling will make you kill things.
  How is that different from human females? *duck*
  
  --
  The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Re:Not entirely mutually beneficial... by crimson+tsunami · 2013-12-16 20:34 · Score: 5, Funny

summary says 5,000 years ago, so dinosaur accidents then :)
Cats, domesticated ?? by baileydau · 2013-12-16 20:51 · Score: 5, Funny

BS.
I've got one on my desk right now proving it certainly isn't domesticated. She's trying to eat everything in sight. Our other one has previously chewed right through my phone charging cable.
The difference between cats and dogs:
A dog thinks: You feed me, you house me, you look after me. You must be a god.
A cat thinks: You feed me, you house me, you look after me. I must be a god.

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Ever stop to think ... and forget to start again?
1. Re:Cats, domesticated ?? by Opportunist · 2013-12-16 21:48 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  In other words, the cat trained you through negative reinforcement.
  
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  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:Stop blaming autocorrect! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-16 21:37 · Score: 3, Funny

I have lots of strange abbreviations in my personal dictionary.
Re:Stop blaming autocorrect! by alexhs · 2013-12-16 22:19 · Score: 5, Funny

There is a reason you get are forced to preview your post before submitting.
And Muphry's law still applies :)

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I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Re:Stop blaming autocorrect! by Paradise+Pete · 2013-12-16 22:24 · Score: 5, Funny

And Muphry's law still applies
I see waht you did there.
Sensation! by nospam007 · 2013-12-16 22:48 · Score: 3, Funny

"Cat bones unearthed in a 5000-year-old Chinese farming village indicate that the animals consumed rodents "
Finally, that burning question "do cats eat mice?' can finally be laid to rest.
Cats do eat mice!
Re:They weren't petting animals until recently? by VortexCortex · 2013-12-17 00:19 · Score: 4, Funny

There is no proof we have actually been domesticating cats as petting animals for more than a few hundred years. Until the 19th century or so
Quick now, Jeeves, fetch the net! I've spotted a rare young-earth Egyptianist.
We domesticated, not them by Anonymous Coward · 2013-12-17 01:56 · Score: 2, Funny

As many point out, the cats have it good in most homes. But I think dogs have it better. The stereotype is that dogs are dumb and cats are smart. Well, dogs are the ones who have an entourage (us) following them around and picking up their poop. Think about it. We pick up their POOP. We literally wait for them to finish pooping, then we (with a bag only a few hundredths of a millimeter thick) stoop to pick up their poop and we carry it until we get home to put in in our trash. Any other owner/pet relationship has the owner doing that?
Cats and editor religious wars by thogard · 2013-12-17 02:00 · Score: 5, Funny

While I agree that competent users of vi or emacs can all do the same things, I feel that the major difference between the two is related to what happens when a cat walks on the keyboard.