Ancient farmers ‘turned the wildcat into today’s moggy’

DOMESTIC cats come from the African wildcat tamed by the Middle East farmers 10,000 years ago, DNA shows.

Early agricultural settlements, rife with rodents, probably attracted the animals. Farmers welcomed them as they kept stocks of grain free from vermin.

Thousands of years on, cats did the same pest control travelling from Egypt on ships

DOMESTICATED House cat

bound for Europe and Asia. Bones of cats with Egyptian DNA have been found at Viking sites near the Baltic Sea. Scientists from Belgium’s University of Leuven, took DNA from 200 cats found in the Middle East, Africa and Europe up to 9,000 years ago. But lead author Dr Claudio Ottoni said: “It’s still unclear whether the Egyptian cat descends from imported cats or whether a separate second domestication took place.”