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Cats May Have Been Domesticated Twice (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: Cats may have been domesticated twice, once in Turkey around 10,000 years ago, and again in Egypt, thousands of years later. That's the conclusion of a new genetic analysis of more than 200 ancient cats, including DNA extracted from Egyptian mummies. The scientists found evidence for an exodus of cats into the wider world from both ancient Turkey and ancient Egypt, but that these two waves of cats sported different genetic signatures. Whether or not the ancient Egyptians independently domesticated cats, their massive breeding programs appear to have further tamed the feline, turning cats from territorial and antisocial creatures into the lovable furballs we know today.
> turning cats from territorial and antisocial creatures into the lovable furballs we know today.
That's the result of castration/sterilization, not domestication. Most cats are still pretty much territorial and antisocial. Egyptians only learnt them a new hunt technic made of a mix of harassing, mewing, purring and rubbing against human being legs until they accept to release some food.
The feline brain is very similar in structure to the human brain, only obviously a lot smaller.
Just like humans they are very adaptive and able to change with their environment. So if that environment includes humans, they adapt and learn to live with a human environment.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
If you understand a few things about the cat brain, their behaviour makes a lot more sense.
Cats don't understand cause and effect. They only learn by trial and error, positive and negative reinforcement. Often they will adopt less than optimal behaviours because they work and they don't have any concept of optimization. Sometimes this makes them seem very clever, appearing to have worked out how to perform a complex series of actions, and other times they seem really dumb. In every case it's just the result of trying stuff until something works, and cats have a lot of time to spend experimenting.
Cats also don't have object permanence. When they see a toy, they don't think "that's the same toy I had yesterday, and it's where I left it". They only know it's their toy because it's shape is familiar and it smells like them. They only know where it is because they learned by experience that it's usually in a particular room.
On a social level, they are basically sociopaths. They learn how to behave around humans but don't necessarily feel the emotions that drive us to act a certain way. Some behaviour is the same as they would have with their mother. Adult cats generally don't use their voices much, if they meow it's usually to get their human staff to do what they want, the same as they would meow to attract their mother's attention. Kneading is another kitten behaviour that they apply to humans - they are trying to milk you.
The most important thing for cats is their personal domain. Moving house is very traumatic for them because they need familiar spaces. They don't really care who the human staff are; you being a constant during the move doesn't offer them much comfort. Some places have started offering apartments with cats, i.e. the cat lives in the apartment all its life while the humans come and go.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Anyone that has lived with a cat can tell you that they are very social animals. They're just not DEPENDANT on people like dogs are. Dogs are stuck on the "look at me, pay attention to me" mode. Cats are more like people, they have times they want to be with others, and times they want to be alone. They are very social though.
Or, as an analogy, dogs are like five year olds, constantly wanting and needing attention; cats are like teenagers, mostly independent but occasionally affectionate.
On a social level, they are basically sociopaths
While it is true that cats tend to be independently minded, they also form bonds in a group and have an established hierarchy. They are very social, but also protective of each other when sufficiently bonded.
I've experienced cases where when a cat senses one of their group to be in danger or trapped, it will go and try to seek help. They will vocalize when they feel something is wrong or requires attention.
An example, one day one of our outside cats (an adopted stray) went missing. We didn't think much of it at first as its a pretty common occurrence, but after several days there was a change in behavior in one of the other outside cats. It became extremely vocal, following us around and demanding attention until we followed it. It led us to a small structure on a neighboring property and was acting very agitated. When we looked inside, we found the missing cat, which had been trapped and would have died had its partner not alerted us.
That's not what I'd consider to be sociopathic.
The hype over T.gondii has been largely driven by popular opinion pieces such as “How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy” instead of high quality research.
In-fact in what they call, "to our knowledge, the most comprehensive assessment of the possible link between T. gondii infection and a variety of impairments in a single cohort," Duke University researchers Karen Sugden suggests that there may be nothing to worry about after all. They report that toxoplasmosis is associated with essentially no behavioural abnormalities in humans. http://blogs.discovermagazine....