Are cats really our pets?
There's a meme floating around that jokes
that really they own us.
And it's a fun question to ask about a pet
that refuses to come
when called,
or makes eye contact
as it pushes something off a bench.
But it turns out
this is something that academics
are taking seriously.
Have we fully domesticated the cat?
And what might that tell us
about our connection with nature?
To understand this,
we have to take a journey through time
and the history of domestication.
Dogs are known
as man's best friend,
and are also probably
the oldest.
Archeologist recognized that the domestication of animals
is one of the most important transitions
in human history.
The first example of domestication
has long been explored and debated.
But one of the oldest examples
of accepted dog remains
dates back 14,000 years.
When archeologists dug up the remains
adjacent to humans,
the modern dog is descended
from a wolf population.
Domesticated at a time
when humans were largely
nomadic hunter-gatherers.
It's hard to overestimate the impact
this has had with archeologist
Gregor Larson,
noting that removed domestication
from the human species.
There's probably a couple of million of us
on the planet, max.
Instead, what do we have?
7 billion people.
Climate change,
travel, innovation and everything.
Domestication has influenced
the entire Earth. And dogs were the first.
Our relationship with dogs
is not the only type of domestication.
And archeologists
sometimes categorize into three broad fields.
Pets; like guinea pigs and ferrets.
Livestock; like cows or chickens.
And transport animals;
like camels and horses.
So the story of how dogs became
our pets from wolves
is an obvious example of domestication.
But sometimes it's not so clear.
And in fact, things get a little bit weird.
In the Cuevas de la Araña
or 'Spider Caves' in Eastern Spain.
There's rock art that depicts a human figure
gathering wild honey from a beehive.
So the relationship between humans and bees
goes back thousands of years.
But is it correct to say
that we've domesticated the bee?
Domestication should be considered
different than taming,
which is when a wild animals brought in.
It may be docile
and trying to live around humans.
Instead, domestication.
There should be a close
relationship between humans and the animals
over multiple generations.
The animals should be different
that its wild ancestors
in appearance and behavior.
And it should be genetically different
as well.
In the case of bees, beekeepers
do breed for particular traits
higher honey production, reduced aggression
and resistance to disease.
So they're widely considered
to be domesticated
But this isn't universally accepted.
Some people know that
they're largely unchanged
from their wild cousins.
So the domestication
can be considered partial at best.
To understand
human history,
archeologists often explore
the connection between human and animals.
And this doesn't
always neatly fit into boxes.
In fact,
some of human behavior
changes animals, even wild ones.
Archeologist
have long believed
that the history of animal domestication
largely began around 10,000 years ago,
when Hunter-Gatherers started to grow crops
and settle down in permanent villages.
The so-called Neolithic Revolution.
But it's possible
that some animals were domesticated
earlier than we think.
In fact,
early Hunter-Gatherers could have formed
special relationships
with wild animal species
that influenced their behavior
and their genes.
Living closely with animals,
including as pets, is a complex
and probably very ancient
part of the human story.
It may even have given rise
to changes that we associate
with domestication
long before the beginnings
of Neolithic society.
Around the world,
people have tamed wild animals
in a way that falls
short of full domestication,
like elephants in India or moose in Russia.
But we're also changing animals
in the way that we're changing nature.
There's research
into how cities are impacting
how animals evolve.
For example, there's mice in Central Park
in New York City.
They have genes that allow them
to process fatty human foods.
And songbirds around
the world have been witness
singing louder
and higher-pitched than their wild cousins.
And that brings us back to cats.
Researchers believe that Egyptians were
the first people to have cats as pets.
Around 3600 years ago.
But the connection might date back
even longer than that,
with cats
going and clearing out
rice from prehistoric grain sites.
With evidence for this
found in archeological sites in Israel.
You might have noticed that
there are a lot more varieties of dogs
and there are cats.
And that goes back to the history
and how we've used the animal over time.
Dogs have been bred
for a range of different purposes,
from pulling
sleds through to hunting,
where cats have largely been
a companion animal.
So the major variance is just the coat
And even that's a fairly modern
development
with different breeds
coming about in the 19th century.
But are they fully domesticated?
Now, that goes back to the question
about what it means
to be fully domesticated
And clearly,
they've been our pets
for thousands of years.
So many people accept that they are.
Researchers from Washington University
found that
by examining the genetics
of an average house cat
and comparing it to its wild relatives
that were very similar.
Noting that we don't think they
are truly domesticated
despite their connections with humans,
they're still wild creatures at heart.
Now you know your cat best,
so I'll let you answer who owns who.
But the bigger question is
how do we want to shape animals in nature
and how might they be shaping us?