The complex origin story of domestic cats: Research points to Tunisia

Researchers looking into the origin of domestic cats have long considered that cats likely accompanied early farmers during the Neolithic, spreading through Europe alongside the adoption of agriculture.

Two new large-scale investigations, one led by the University of Rome Tor Vergata in collaboration with 42 institutions and another led by the University of Exeter with contributors from 37 institutions, reveal a more complex history than previously imagined. Both point to Tunisia as the likely origin of the domestic cat.

Both studies, which merge extensive genetic data with archaeological evidence, challenge the timeline of European domestic cats, and hint at cultural and religious factors that may have been pivotal in driving feline domestication and translocation.

Cats have long posed a puzzle for archaeologists. Their skeletal features and commonly used mitochondrial DNA markers can overlap significantly with those of their wild counterparts.

Researchers from the University of Rome Tor Vergata–led team conducted paleogenomic analyses of ancient cat specimens from 97 archaeological sites in Europe and Anatolia, as well as museum samples from Italy, Bulgaria, and North Africa.

In their study, “The dispersal of domestic cats from Northern Africa and their introduction to Europe over the last two millennia,” published on the bioRxiv preprint server , 70 low-coverage ancient genomes, 17 additional modern and museum genomes, and 37 radiocarbon-dated cat remains were analyzed.

Results from these nuclear DNA analyses revealed that felines with domestic ancestry only appeared in Europe from around the 1st century CE onward, thousands of years later than traditional narratives suggest.

The Tor Vergata team also identified two introductory waves. An earlier one brought wildcats from Northwest Africa to Sardinia by the 2nd century BCE, giving rise to the island’s present-day wild population. A subsequent wave, during the Roman Imperial period, introduced cats genetically similar to modern domestic lines across Europe, pointing towards Tunisia as a key center of early domestication.

In the University of Exeter collaboration study, “Redefining the timing and circumstances of cat domestication, their dispersal trajectories, and the extirpation of European wildcats,” also published as a preprint on bioRxiv, a slightly different timeline is presented.

By analyzing 2,416 archaeological felid bones across 206 sites and cross-referencing morphological data with genetic findings, they concluded that domestic cats had already appeared in Europe by the early first millennium BCE, before the height of Roman expansion.

Distinct mitochondrial haplogroups were discovered in Britain by the 4th to 2nd centuries BCE, suggesting Iron Age contact, with subsequent waves of introduction occurring during the Roman, Late Antique, and Viking periods. Tunisia is also suggested as the origin point of domestic cats.

Whereas earlier models framed domestication as a primarily commensal relationship, cats as rodent control around human populations and grain stores, religious and cultural dimensions emerge from both stories as a driving human interest in cats.

In Egypt, cats were venerated alongside deities such as Bastet, which may have fostered their mummification and movement via religious networks. Cats became symbols of Artemis and Diana in Greek/Roman religious practice, mirroring Bastet’s significance in Egypt.

Norse mythology similarly featured cats linked to the goddess Freyja, implying that spiritual and ritual beliefs helped propel cats across wider geographies.

Both studies document admixture and competition between arriving domestic cats and Europe’s native wildcats. Evidence points to a decline in wildcat populations beginning in the first millennium CE, potentially related to resource overlap, disease, and hybridization events.

Although the two investigations differ in their proposed arrival dates and dispersal routes for domestic cats, they share a key conclusion that the domestication and spread of cats in Europe happened more recently, and under more culturally driven circumstances, than once thought.

Findings dismantle the considerations that cats were ubiquitous in Neolithic settlements and underscore how previous reliance on mitochondrial markers alone can obscure the full picture of feline domestication.

Taken together, these studies significantly alter our understanding of one of humanity’s most familiar companions. Rather than silently trailing behind early farmers, slinking ever closer to human activity and community, cats likely moved into Europe in multiple waves post-domestication from North Africa, propelled by human cultural practices, trade networks, and religious reverence.

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