An archaeological and historical review of felid-human relationships

Faure and Kitchener synthesized archaeological, iconographic and historical evidence to trace how people and small cats came together across the ancient world. They argued that domestication was a gradual, mutualistic drift rather than a single event: wildcats exploiting the rodents and refuse of Neolithic settlements slowly became tolerant of people, and people in turn tolerated and eventually valued them. The review weighs competing claims about Egyptian, Near Eastern and other centres of origin, examines the role of religious symbolism in protecting cats, and discusses how trade and seafaring spread them. By integrating bones, art and texts, the authors framed cat domestication as a uniquely commensal pathway distinct from the deliberate herding and breeding that produced most livestock.