The history of the domestic cat in Central Europe

Abstract

A recent study from Central Europe has changed our perception of the cat's domestication history. The authors discuss how this has led to the development of an interdisciplinary project combining palaeogenetics, zooarchaeology and radiocarbon dating, with the aim of providing insight into the domestic cat's expansion beyond the Mediterranean.

Közös barátaink régészete és archeometriája

“…Egyes kultúrákban a nagymacskák (jaguár isten; Kovács 2002, Lopes 2003; M-9. ábra), de akár az egyszerű (?)…”

“…Különösen jelentős ebből a szempontból is az ókori Egyiptom, ahol Bast (Basztet) istennő (5. ábra), aki a szerelem, de egyben a Hold, a szülés és a gyermekáldás isteneként (istennőjeként...) működött. Ugyancsak az egyiptomiakhoz köthető a macskák eltemetése, mumifikálása (Kovács 2002), amivel minden bizonnyal biztosítani kívánták, hogy a túlvilágon is találkozhassanak velük. Kati, hogy hívják a macskádat?…”

Sentinels in the shadows: Exploring Toxoplasma gondii and other Sarcocystidae parasites in synanthropic rodents and their public health implications

“…This process of settling down and adopting agricultural practices created a stable ecological niche that ensured sustenance over extended periods. Consequently, this environment began to attract initial rodent populations, as documented by Frynta et al (2005) and Cucchi et al (2005) , which in turn drew the interest of subsequent cat populations ( Krajcarz et al, 2022 ). Through the passing decades and centuries, these modest human settlements gradually expanded into villages and towns, forming the earliest instances of urban settings inhabited by synanthropic species ( Baumann, 2023 ).…”

The paleo-synanthropic niche: a first attempt to define animal’s adaptation to a human-made micro-environment in the Late Pleistocene

“…Sedentarization and the development of agriculture created a stable niche that provided food for a long time. This has been shown to attract first rodents (Frynta et al 2005;Cucchi et al 2020) and later cats (Hu et al 2014;Ottoni and Neer 2020;Krajcarz et al 2022), which feed on these rodents. Over the decades and centuries, the small settlements grew into villages and towns, forming the first urban environments populated by synanthropic animals.…”