Scientists Find Oldest Domesticated Cat

April 9 -- Dogs may be man's best friend, but a discovery on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus proves that cats and people go way back — thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

Anthropologists have unearthed two 9,500-year-old graves — one a human of unknown sex and age and, just 15 inches away, the neatly laid bones of the human's likely companion — a cat.

The intactness of the cat skeleton suggested that someone had dug a small grave for the animal. The human and cat skeletons were positioned symmetrically, with their heads pointing west. Nearby, scientists found a collection of polished stones, tools, jewelry and 24 complete sea shells.

"The association of this burial with both the sea shells and the cat grave strengthens the idea of a special burial indicating a strong relationship between cats and human beings," said J.D. Vigne of the Museum of Natural History in Paris, France, and lead author of the study about the find in the journal Science. "Possibly, tamed cats were devoted to special activities or special human individuals in the village."

Wild Cats to House Cats

Records from Egypt have suggested that bonds between cats and people date as far back as 4,000 to 5,500 years ago. But this discovery, at the site of a Neolithic village that was inhabited from the end of the 9th to the end of the 8th millennia B.C., pushes back that relationship by at least 4,000 years.

People in this village lived in mud huts and raised pigs, goats and sheep and stored grain to feed their livestock. Vigne says their ancestors may have begun introducing wild cats into their villages about 10,000 to 11,000 years ago, to help chase away mice from their grain. Recovered stones engraved with images of wild cats suggest the animals had become part of humans' lives by this time.

Then, apparently, a bond was formed between the mouse-chasers and the farmers.