The earliest known evidence for a tamed African wildcat was found close by a human grave in Shillourokambos, southern Cyprus, dating to about 9,200 to 9,500 years before present.
As there is no evidence of native mammalian fauna on Cyprus, the inhabitants of this Neolithic village most likely brought the cat and other wild mammals to the island from the continent. Scientists therefore assume that African wildcats were attracted to early human settlements in the Fertile Crescent by rodents, in particular the house mouse(Mus musculus), and were tamed by Neolithic farmers.
This commensal relationship between early farmers and tamed cats lasted thousands of years. With agricultural practices spreading, so did tame and domesticated cats. Wildcats of Egypt contributed to the maternal gene pool of the domestic cat at a later time. The earliest known evidence for the occurrence of the domestic cat in Greece dates to around 1200 BC.
Cats Come to Europe
Greek, Phoenician, Carthaginian and Etruscan traders introduced domestic cats to southern Europe. By the 5th century BC, it was a familiar animal around settlements in Magna Graecia and Etruria. Domesticated cats were introduced to Corsica and Sardinia during the Roman Empire before the beginning of the 1st millennium. The Egyptian domestic cat lineage is evidenced in a Baltic Sea port in northern Germany by the end of the Roman Empire in the 5th century.
During domestication, cats have undergone only minor changes in anatomy and behavior, and they are still capable of surviving in the wild. House cats often interbreed with feral cats, producing hybrids such as the Kellas cat in Scotland. Hybridisationbetween domestic and other small wild cat species is also possible.
Several natural behaviors and characteristics of wildcats may have preadapted them for domestication as pets. Captive Leopardus cats also display affectionate behavior toward humans, but have not been domesticated. These traits include their small size, social nature, obvious body language, love of play and relatively high intelligence. Source: Wikipedia.
