March 14, 2023 • 24 mins
Welcome to 6 Degrees of Cats, the world's #1 (and only) cat-themed culture, history and science podcast. From a playful yet rigorously researched angle, join host Amanda B. and her team as we explore the fascinating world of felines and their connections to history, culture, and more. Starting with the question: ARE CATS ACTUALLY DOMESTICATED?
In our first episode, renowned anthro archaeologist Melinda Zeder, Ph.D., and Netflix star animal cognition expert Kristyn Vitale, Ph.D. educate and correct understandings of our little haus panthers.
With their help, discover the true definition of domestication and the possible regions where domestic cats may have originated. And correct common misconceptions about cat behavior and intelligence, helping us understand domestication behaviors and their implications on (cat)titude!
Join us as we journey across time and regions to appreciate how cats are THE consummate domesticate.
Special thanks to Christina Choi, Graham Griffith, Rekha Murthy, Natalie Tulloch and Jane Zumwalt.
Support the podcast, sign up for The Captain’s Log, the companion podcast newsletter and more here: linktr.ee/6degreesofcats.
About the experts:
- Kristyn Vitale, Ph.D. is the founder of Maueyes and star of Netflix’s hit feature film, “The Mind of a Cat”. Her innovative research on cat behavior and human-animal interaction has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals and been covered by such international publications as Science, National Geographic, The New York Times, and The Times of London.
- Melinda A. Zeder, Ph.D. is an American archaeologist and Curator Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution. Her zooarchaeological research has revolutionized understandings of animal domestication.
Producer, writer, editor, sound designer, host, basically everything*
- Captain Kitty (Amanda B.)
* with co-executive producers Binky & Snuggles
Animal voices include:
- Binky & Snuggles _^..^_
Opening and closing credits:
- Leathered: "Look Alive" (c) 2022
- Samples licensed via Loopcloud
- Additional sound effects from Pixabay.com
Logo design:
- Edward Anthony © 2024 (Instagram: @itsmyunzii)
Research used:
- Nilson, S.M., Gandolfi, B., Grahn, R.A. et al. Genetics of randomly bred cats support the cradle of cat domestication being in the Near East. Heredity 129, 346–355 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41437-022-00568-4
- Zeder, M.A. (1982). The Domestication of Animals. Journal of Anthropological Research 9(4):321-327. DOI:10.1080/00988157.1982.9977605
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
No, Binky.
(00:03):
Awesome there.
Is that even comfortable?
Oh, whoops.
Welcome to the season premiere of Six Degrees of Cats.
Pooca.
Koyangin.
Borebe.
Neko.
Gato.
Hulu.
This podcast, in which I, Captain Kitty, or Amanda, were technical about it, investigated
(00:28):
a question about cats that explores each degree of separation between human and feeling
kind with the help of a diversity of experts.
We'll touch on genetics, history, cognition, a bunch of philosophy, psychology and marketing
basically the same thing if you ask me.
On top of this stuff, we already know, discuss, and probably love about cats.
(00:51):
Okay.
So now that we got those self-introductions out of the way, I should probably be able to
clarify that no, in real life, I don't refer to myself in the third person.
Even though I actually just read some article that says it can help to do that.
Per the reaction I got on the train, we don't do that.
(01:12):
Obviously, I love cats.
Maybe you do too.
Or maybe not.
What is wrong with you?
They're so cute.
Whoo, just need a moment there.
Okay, we can roll.
And how cool is it that they have nine lives?
I wonder where that even came from?
(01:33):
What is it about cats and resiliency that seems to be such a recurring theme and how we understand
them?
You know, the whole cat's landing on their feet, no.
Isn't that kind of related to that physics problem where buttered toast always falls on the floor
buttered side down?
Speaking of physics, I studied astrophysics a bit in college.
I wonder why the ancients saw a dog, an archer and a bunch of bears, but no cat.
(01:58):
Cats are totally stars.
They're absolutely the rock stars.
The kids in a lot of pictures of folks like David Bowie holding a cat, Freddie Mercury of Queen,
a big time cat.
Yes, Queen.
Why do we call mommy cats?
She's pretty sure.
Our more reticent than their male counterparts.
They say about a fierce mama bear in her young.
Whoa, I'm sorry.
I'm on a roll.
(02:18):
You are totally caught up in my brain, which is exactly the point of this podcast.
Maybe you've heard the saying, 6 degrees of separation.
It's that concept that we humans are all connected to each other individually through six or less
people.
I have really, really thought a lot about this, probably more than the average person.
(02:43):
Definitely more than the average person.
To the point where it's, it's kind of shaped how I see the world.
Humans are connected to cats in so many more ways than you may realize.
The way we've come to depict cats, coexist with cats, and conceptualize cats says so much about
(03:03):
us in addition to cats, of course.
So you can think of this podcast as a way for me to connect the dots between humans and our
cuddly cousins, cats.
Are you intrigued?
I hope so.
All right, let's start from the beginning.
(03:24):
The very beginning of cats and humans.
In this episode, we'll answer the burning question that has haunted our hearts since the beginning
of this beautiful friendship between cats and humans.
Where did they come from these kitties?
And how did they get to share our home, our beds, our food, and our culture?
(03:47):
According to one origin story -
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and
the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
(04:10):
And God said, "Let there be light, and there was light."
And then water, earth, whales, yada, yada, yada.
Then at some point, the divine, fearless catas.
The domesticated house cat.
Most ancient texts, like the one I used to, I mean, my British colleague just read from,
(04:34):
don't really show people scooping litter from ancient mud baskets or praying to the gods
to cure their cat of the demon that possesses them at 2am to run the heck through the house,
waking up all 15 generations of the family cohabitating in there.
I'm choosing not to take it personally, that cat's, unlike dogs and cows and whatnot.
(05:01):
Don't actually appear in some of the most influential written documents.
And what we refer to as the Western canon, such as the Bible.
Turns out the region's depicted in those ancient texts, such as Babylon, which is modern
day Iraq, and Persia, which is modern day Iran, have a lot of relevance in the beginning
(05:26):
of the cat human connections.
A relatively small amount of research has been dedicated to the domestication of cats, probably
because it's quite hard to get funding for research on, say, women's health, let alone more
fun questions like this one.
(05:47):
But there are folks whose work has cat prints all over it, such as our first expert.
My name is Melinda Zeder.
I am what's considered an anthropological archaeologist.
I was a senior scientist and a curator of old-world archaeology at the Smithsonian Institute
(06:08):
in their Department of Anthropology, which is part of the National Museum of Natural History.
I now emeritus in that position retired in 2018 after almost 30 years at the Smithsonian.
But I'm still engaged in active research primarily focused on domestication, both plants and animals,
(06:32):
which is a real passion of mine that's been the primary focus of my work looking at human interaction
with animals and increasingly with plants through the lens of domestication.
In this incredible discussion I had with Dr. Zeder, I realized that the word domestic has a
different, specific definition to what I use in my everyday North American conversational
(06:57):
English.
What do we mean when we talk about domestication?
Definitions of domestication there have been many.
And they tended to either go in two polls, either human oriented, where it views humans as
assuming this mastery, almost like a technological breakthrough for humans of figuring out
(07:18):
how to bring plants and animals under their control for their own benefit.
More recently people have begun to look at it purely through a biological lens of what's
in it for the plant and animal portraying humans as unwitting dupes in the process.
The way I view that is a mutualism, meaning that both partners come together, they interact
(07:42):
in a way that is to their mutual benefit and is something that affects their overall evolution.
So I see domestication as this ongoing relationship by collaborating with humans, domestication
has really paid off for these plant-enhanimal species that have engaged in this relationship
(08:04):
to the point that it has become usually genetically modified in a way that it has become increasingly
dependent on maintaining that relationship and less and less able to survive outside of
the group.
That totally helped clarify domestication.
(08:24):
Let's talk about it in terms of cats.
For this question I was also fortunate to speak with researcher Dr. Kristen Vitali, whose
work has challenged the notion that cats are dumb, untrainable, or other things that turn
out to be pretty darn incorrect as any true cat lover has known.
(08:44):
Take it away Dr. Vitali.
My main research deals with cat behavior and social cognition, how do cats behave when they're
around people and when they receive different types of socialization interventions or
different training, how do these things impact their behavior but also their welfare in the
home?
(09:05):
That's one of my goals.
Through my research is to find ways that we can increase cat welfare through the knowledge.
We have millions of cats living in homes here in the US alone, but we don't really know the
kinds of things that are most beneficial to increase in their welfare or when I say welfare,
I mean allowing them to engage in behaviors that are most biologically relevant to their
(09:30):
species.
We know things like scratching.
That's a really biologically relevant behavior but it's also a behavior that causes a lot
of conflict with their owners.
Through Dr. Zeder's earlier point on domestication and the common misunderstandings of the process
and the use of that term.
I think that domestication gets used in a lot of ways that it scientifically not meant to be.
(09:57):
When we talk about domestication of a species, we're really looking at significant evolutionary
change over time.
Is that animal significantly different from their wild ancestor?
Did they undergo significant changes in their body structure and their behavior and in their
genetics?
It's a genetic state.
(10:20):
When we look at domestication, their body is very different than a wild cat.
Same for dogs.
What we often see in domesticated animals is that there's a shortening of limbs.
They also shortens or curled up.
There's more juvenile features, things like floppy ears or seen both dogs and cats.
(10:43):
We have Scottish fold cats which have floppy ears.
You also see a retention of juvenile traits.
These behaviors that typically cease an adult hood continue on.
On cats we see things like purring or a meeting on a person or drooling which are almost
all related to nursing behavior.
(11:04):
So domesticated species have a lot of these characteristic body and behavior differences.
Aw.
So kitty's needing is like sucking their thumbs.
That's adorable.
When we return from the break, we'll continue our discussion of domestication.
Another thing we often see is that pivaled coloration that black and white basically
(11:39):
pigmented and unpagmented fur.
And a lot of these are just trademarks of domestication.
It's not that you don't see those in wild animals.
It's that domesticated animals have a much higher proportion because they've been selectively
bred or the tame individuals have been bred over time.
(11:59):
Tame individuals.
When we talk about domestication, we're talking about this evolutionary process.
But if we're talking about tameness or being socialized, that's more of a proximate mechanism.
So something that's going on in that individual's life.
We might have a domesticated cat genetically they're domesticated, but they receive no socialization
(12:22):
from humans.
So they're a feral individual.
They're not socialized, but they're still domesticated.
You can have a domesticated individual who is feral.
I had no idea, tame and domesticated were distinct.
How did we get tame behaviors out of these animals?
(12:43):
Or rather, how did the tamest of the tame kitty cats come to be domesticated by us?
That's actually something that we don't really know for both dogs and cats.
We have these predominant ideas that we went out and selected for specific wolves that were
social to people and bred them and selectively did that.
(13:07):
That cats kind of just showed up around our settlements and domesticated themselves.
While that's probably very close to the case, it's not actually something that we know for
sure that it could be just as likely that people went out and selected African wild cats
that were tame to people and selectively bred them the same way.
(13:29):
It could be that with three roaming wolves that were more tame showed up around human settlements,
they could be made and continued to breed, just like the way we think of it as happening with cats.
Although these are kind of the major things that are pushed, we don't really know what happened.
It's not documented historically.
No one wrote down the process.
(13:50):
There is that idea that there's this big difference between the evolutionary history of the two
species, but we just don't know for sure dogs have been domesticated longer and through
that people have selected for specific things that they want the dogs to do.
But we really haven't kind of intensively selected for that in cats.
(14:11):
I think that's one of the big differences, not just what that starting point of domestication
was, but how we've treated them as the process has gone.
They filled very different roles for us as humans.
Dr. Zeter, concur's.
You know, cats are hard to document and their domestication in the archaeological record, because
(14:33):
they're not a major food item.
Their remains don't show up in archaeological sites as much as maybe in part because of the unique
path that cats take into domestication.
So while there are some physical changes that Dr. Vitali talked about, they don't show
the kind of changes in the skeleton that would allow you to distinguish domestic cats from
(14:54):
wild cats, cats seem to hold on to that wild cat form for quite a while.
Let's go back to evolutionary history with Dr. Zeter, how humans and animals originally interacted.
There were multiple sort of pathways into domestication, either with humans initiating
(15:16):
their relationship by manipulating conditions of growth or their actual life cycle of these
animals themselves to their advantage or what I call a commensal pathway.
Commensal pathway?
The domestic hit that initiates the relationship by moving into an anthropogenic or a human
(15:36):
created environment to take advantage of new opportunities there and that at some point human
see the advantage of having that species around and begin to engage in reciprocal interactions
that lead to domestication.
So when it comes to feelings, catas.
It's thought that cats are one of those commensal domesticates like dogs.
(15:59):
Cats do seem to be camp followers of grain and the association between cats' mousing ability
and humans' interest in grain is probably a factor in their ultimate crossing over from commensal
to fully domesticated animal.
So where did this all happen?
(16:21):
Let me just refer to the Near East, which is where I primarily worked in which is known as the
heartland of domestication of things like wheat and barley.
Other really common crops as well as the major livestock species of cattle and sheep and
goat and pigs.
A lot of archaeological work has been conducted across this whole region that's often referred
(16:45):
to as the fertile crescent.
Those biblical sites I referenced earlier.
That stretches from Israel all the way up through Lebanon and around into northern Syria across
South Eastern Anatolia or Turkey into north Eastern Iraq and down into the Zagros Mountains
(17:06):
of Iran.
So is that where domesticated kitties first came from?
It's not clear to me that Turkey in particular was the context for initial domestication, but
that the region was probably the idea now is that as people began to live in one place for
(17:28):
longer periods of time, that also attracted other species like mice.
The attraction of that long term human occupation with people being kind of trashy and
leaving things around attract these other animals as well as animals that prey on the animals
(17:51):
that are attracted to feeding off the refuse or garbage or stored grain.
The first sedentary communities we see in Israel are 14,000 years ago and is possible that
the relationship may have started that far back.
They are providing a real service and keeping passed down in very important stocks of these stored
(18:13):
plant resources.
Sounds like we really can say we've been friends with cats for a lot longer than assumed.
Or at least there's evidence to show that might be the case.
We see some evidence in actually Cyprus of all places.
I think it's about 10,500 years ago with a cat burial associated with humans.
(18:40):
Even though that skeleton of that cat looks to be like a wild cat, cats aren't native to
Cyprus.
So it's thought that they were actually brought there by humans and the association with humans
indicates to the people that excavated it that it's developed some sort of a social bond with
human because it was intentionally buried.
(19:02):
We see cats with a Near Eastern heritage showing up in sites as far removed as in Poland.
Fascinating cats were loved all across the world.
I definitely hope I can go on a world tour of these places some day.
There's just one remaining question I have.
(19:25):
An animal will be partly domesticated.
I've heard that about cats.
There's sort of a trope out there that cats are only partially domesticated.
They retain more of these wild behaviors and I really don't think that's quite true.
They come from a very different type of animal than the dog with the wolf.
(19:47):
The wolf are very social animals and I think the dogs are really played on that socialization
and their unique ability to develop social bonds with their humans and cats come out of animals that are
much more solitary.
And so in many ways, their behavior harkens back to that initial behavior.
This brings us back to Dr. Vitali's earlier points about tame behaviors and domesticated
(20:11):
animal populations.
You still have tame individuals that are cats but you also have non-tayne individuals.
But you have that in any population.
It's the same with wolves that certain individuals are less tame than others.
The more tame individuals will do more well around human settlements, whether that's because
(20:31):
humans tolerate them more because hey, that wolf is not fighting me.
I'm going to let them eat the scraps or because humans went out and got those wolves because
they had a reduced flight distance from the person.
They were more willing to interact or to stay around.
And within the scientific community, there is argument whether cats are fully domesticated or not.
(20:53):
But again, I think when you're talking about a species versus an individual, how can you
have a half domesticated individual?
Maybe you can but that's something that's not really clearly laid out.
What is a domesticated animal?
And if we're talking about an evolutionary change over time from an ancestor, that's our definition.
(21:16):
I'm not sure how you can have a semi domesticated individual cat.
So when your kitty has the zoomies or it's not responding, quite the way you would expect
it to based on dog behaviors or other domesticated animals you can train to do human-like
things, that really doesn't mean they're not fully domesticated.
(21:38):
Doctors here has a really interesting point.
They are the consummate domesticate because what they've managed to do is totally domesticate
their owners who do all these things for them and then get bitten.
And when return and don't get undying on questionable love.
(21:58):
Okay, whoa.
Newsflash.
We were domesticated by cats.
Hey, that's a truth.
I know we all joke about how our cats have trained us to do certain things.
I mean, looks like that's kind of how it all started.
I have a feeling that the first people were just as charmed by the cuteness of kitty cats as we are now.
(22:26):
You know what?
Let me change my earlier statement.
I am taking it personally that cats were excluded from ancient texts.
Sounds like they've been around for a long time.
It said, not all ancient texts excluded kitties.
We are going to go there.
(22:48):
Everything is within 60 degrees of cats.
Please check out the show notes where a few greater deep dives into this relatively simplified
discussion are available.
Big thanks to the amazing Dr. Kirsten Vitaly and Melinda Zeder and thanks to my team, which is
me, Captain Kitty.
Yes, fine.
(23:10):
You are the executive producers, being in snuggle.
60 degrees of cats is produced, written, edited and hosted by yours truly, Captain Kitty,
aka Amanda Beat.
Please subscribe to our mailing list by visiting tinyurl.com/60g of cats or find us on all
(23:33):
those social media platforms.
And for my paid subscribers.
You'll have access to the extra audio with more deep dives by our experts.
This and all episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient, and
the weird.
And of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
(24:05):
I always had cats ever since I was a little girl.
My family were dog people, but I was drawn to cats.
So I've had quite a history of cat keeping starting with Mr. Makulo when I was a little girl.
I currently have a very grumpy 15 year old female named Annie, who is in a line of grumpy
(24:27):
female cats that I seem to be drawn to.
No, Binky.
(00:03):
Awesome there.
Is that even comfortable?
Oh, whoops.
Welcome to the season premiere of Six Degrees of Cats.
Pooca.
Koyangin.
Borebe.
Neko.
Gato.
Hulu.
This podcast, in which I, Captain Kitty, or Amanda, were technical about it, investigated
(00:28):
a question about cats that explores each degree of separation between human and feeling
kind with the help of a diversity of experts.
We'll touch on genetics, history, cognition, a bunch of philosophy, psychology and marketing
basically the same thing if you ask me.
On top of this stuff, we already know, discuss, and probably love about cats.
(00:51):
Okay.
So now that we got those self-introductions out of the way, I should probably be able to
clarify that no, in real life, I don't refer to myself in the third person.
Even though I actually just read some article that says it can help to do that.
Per the reaction I got on the train, we don't do that.
(01:12):
Obviously, I love cats.
Maybe you do too.
Or maybe not.
What is wrong with you?
They're so cute.
Whoo, just need a moment there.
Okay, we can roll.
And how cool is it that they have nine lives?
I wonder where that even came from?
(01:33):
What is it about cats and resiliency that seems to be such a recurring theme and how we understand
them?
You know, the whole cat's landing on their feet, no.
Isn't that kind of related to that physics problem where buttered toast always falls on the floor
buttered side down?
Speaking of physics, I studied astrophysics a bit in college.
I wonder why the ancients saw a dog, an archer and a bunch of bears, but no cat.
(01:58):
Cats are totally stars.
They're absolutely the rock stars.
The kids in a lot of pictures of folks like David Bowie holding a cat, Freddie Mercury of Queen,
a big time cat.
Yes, Queen.
Why do we call mommy cats?
She's pretty sure.
Our more reticent than their male counterparts.
They say about a fierce mama bear in her young.
Whoa, I'm sorry.
I'm on a roll.
(02:18):
You are totally caught up in my brain, which is exactly the point of this podcast.
Maybe you've heard the saying, 6 degrees of separation.
It's that concept that we humans are all connected to each other individually through six or less
people.
I have really, really thought a lot about this, probably more than the average person.
(02:43):
Definitely more than the average person.
To the point where it's, it's kind of shaped how I see the world.
Humans are connected to cats in so many more ways than you may realize.
The way we've come to depict cats, coexist with cats, and conceptualize cats says so much about
(03:03):
us in addition to cats, of course.
So you can think of this podcast as a way for me to connect the dots between humans and our
cuddly cousins, cats.
Are you intrigued?
I hope so.
All right, let's start from the beginning.
(03:24):
The very beginning of cats and humans.
In this episode, we'll answer the burning question that has haunted our hearts since the beginning
of this beautiful friendship between cats and humans.
Where did they come from these kitties?
And how did they get to share our home, our beds, our food, and our culture?
(03:47):
According to one origin story -
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and
the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
(04:10):
And God said, "Let there be light, and there was light."
And then water, earth, whales, yada, yada, yada.
Then at some point, the divine, fearless catas.
The domesticated house cat.
Most ancient texts, like the one I used to, I mean, my British colleague just read from,
(04:34):
don't really show people scooping litter from ancient mud baskets or praying to the gods
to cure their cat of the demon that possesses them at 2am to run the heck through the house,
waking up all 15 generations of the family cohabitating in there.
I'm choosing not to take it personally, that cat's, unlike dogs and cows and whatnot.
(05:01):
Don't actually appear in some of the most influential written documents.
And what we refer to as the Western canon, such as the Bible.
Turns out the region's depicted in those ancient texts, such as Babylon, which is modern
day Iraq, and Persia, which is modern day Iran, have a lot of relevance in the beginning
(05:26):
of the cat human connections.
A relatively small amount of research has been dedicated to the domestication of cats, probably
because it's quite hard to get funding for research on, say, women's health, let alone more
fun questions like this one.
(05:47):
But there are folks whose work has cat prints all over it, such as our first expert.
My name is Melinda Zeder.
I am what's considered an anthropological archaeologist.
I was a senior scientist and a curator of old-world archaeology at the Smithsonian Institute
(06:08):
in their Department of Anthropology, which is part of the National Museum of Natural History.
I now emeritus in that position retired in 2018 after almost 30 years at the Smithsonian.
But I'm still engaged in active research primarily focused on domestication, both plants and animals,
(06:32):
which is a real passion of mine that's been the primary focus of my work looking at human interaction
with animals and increasingly with plants through the lens of domestication.
In this incredible discussion I had with Dr. Zeder, I realized that the word domestic has a
different, specific definition to what I use in my everyday North American conversational
(06:57):
English.
What do we mean when we talk about domestication?
Definitions of domestication there have been many.
And they tended to either go in two polls, either human oriented, where it views humans as
assuming this mastery, almost like a technological breakthrough for humans of figuring out
(07:18):
how to bring plants and animals under their control for their own benefit.
More recently people have begun to look at it purely through a biological lens of what's
in it for the plant and animal portraying humans as unwitting dupes in the process.
The way I view that is a mutualism, meaning that both partners come together, they interact
(07:42):
in a way that is to their mutual benefit and is something that affects their overall evolution.
So I see domestication as this ongoing relationship by collaborating with humans, domestication
has really paid off for these plant-enhanimal species that have engaged in this relationship
(08:04):
to the point that it has become usually genetically modified in a way that it has become increasingly
dependent on maintaining that relationship and less and less able to survive outside of
the group.
That totally helped clarify domestication.
(08:24):
Let's talk about it in terms of cats.
For this question I was also fortunate to speak with researcher Dr. Kristen Vitali, whose
work has challenged the notion that cats are dumb, untrainable, or other things that turn
out to be pretty darn incorrect as any true cat lover has known.
(08:44):
Take it away Dr. Vitali.
My main research deals with cat behavior and social cognition, how do cats behave when they're
around people and when they receive different types of socialization interventions or
different training, how do these things impact their behavior but also their welfare in the
home?
(09:05):
That's one of my goals.
Through my research is to find ways that we can increase cat welfare through the knowledge.
We have millions of cats living in homes here in the US alone, but we don't really know the
kinds of things that are most beneficial to increase in their welfare or when I say welfare,
I mean allowing them to engage in behaviors that are most biologically relevant to their
(09:30):
species.
We know things like scratching.
That's a really biologically relevant behavior but it's also a behavior that causes a lot
of conflict with their owners.
Through Dr. Zeder's earlier point on domestication and the common misunderstandings of the process
and the use of that term.
I think that domestication gets used in a lot of ways that it scientifically not meant to be.
(09:57):
When we talk about domestication of a species, we're really looking at significant evolutionary
change over time.
Is that animal significantly different from their wild ancestor?
Did they undergo significant changes in their body structure and their behavior and in their
genetics?
It's a genetic state.
(10:20):
When we look at domestication, their body is very different than a wild cat.
Same for dogs.
What we often see in domesticated animals is that there's a shortening of limbs.
They also shortens or curled up.
There's more juvenile features, things like floppy ears or seen both dogs and cats.
(10:43):
We have Scottish fold cats which have floppy ears.
You also see a retention of juvenile traits.
These behaviors that typically cease an adult hood continue on.
On cats we see things like purring or a meeting on a person or drooling which are almost
all related to nursing behavior.
(11:04):
So domesticated species have a lot of these characteristic body and behavior differences.
Aw.
So kitty's needing is like sucking their thumbs.
That's adorable.
When we return from the break, we'll continue our discussion of domestication.
Another thing we often see is that pivaled coloration that black and white basically
(11:39):
pigmented and unpagmented fur.
And a lot of these are just trademarks of domestication.
It's not that you don't see those in wild animals.
It's that domesticated animals have a much higher proportion because they've been selectively
bred or the tame individuals have been bred over time.
(11:59):
Tame individuals.
When we talk about domestication, we're talking about this evolutionary process.
But if we're talking about tameness or being socialized, that's more of a proximate mechanism.
So something that's going on in that individual's life.
We might have a domesticated cat genetically they're domesticated, but they receive no socialization
(12:22):
from humans.
So they're a feral individual.
They're not socialized, but they're still domesticated.
You can have a domesticated individual who is feral.
I had no idea, tame and domesticated were distinct.
How did we get tame behaviors out of these animals?
(12:43):
Or rather, how did the tamest of the tame kitty cats come to be domesticated by us?
That's actually something that we don't really know for both dogs and cats.
We have these predominant ideas that we went out and selected for specific wolves that were
social to people and bred them and selectively did that.
(13:07):
That cats kind of just showed up around our settlements and domesticated themselves.
While that's probably very close to the case, it's not actually something that we know for
sure that it could be just as likely that people went out and selected African wild cats
that were tame to people and selectively bred them the same way.
(13:29):
It could be that with three roaming wolves that were more tame showed up around human settlements,
they could be made and continued to breed, just like the way we think of it as happening with cats.
Although these are kind of the major things that are pushed, we don't really know what happened.
It's not documented historically.
No one wrote down the process.
(13:50):
There is that idea that there's this big difference between the evolutionary history of the two
species, but we just don't know for sure dogs have been domesticated longer and through
that people have selected for specific things that they want the dogs to do.
But we really haven't kind of intensively selected for that in cats.
(14:11):
I think that's one of the big differences, not just what that starting point of domestication
was, but how we've treated them as the process has gone.
They filled very different roles for us as humans.
Dr. Zeter, concur's.
You know, cats are hard to document and their domestication in the archaeological record, because
(14:33):
they're not a major food item.
Their remains don't show up in archaeological sites as much as maybe in part because of the unique
path that cats take into domestication.
So while there are some physical changes that Dr. Vitali talked about, they don't show
the kind of changes in the skeleton that would allow you to distinguish domestic cats from
(14:54):
wild cats, cats seem to hold on to that wild cat form for quite a while.
Let's go back to evolutionary history with Dr. Zeter, how humans and animals originally interacted.
There were multiple sort of pathways into domestication, either with humans initiating
(15:16):
their relationship by manipulating conditions of growth or their actual life cycle of these
animals themselves to their advantage or what I call a commensal pathway.
Commensal pathway?
The domestic hit that initiates the relationship by moving into an anthropogenic or a human
(15:36):
created environment to take advantage of new opportunities there and that at some point human
see the advantage of having that species around and begin to engage in reciprocal interactions
that lead to domestication.
So when it comes to feelings, catas.
It's thought that cats are one of those commensal domesticates like dogs.
(15:59):
Cats do seem to be camp followers of grain and the association between cats' mousing ability
and humans' interest in grain is probably a factor in their ultimate crossing over from commensal
to fully domesticated animal.
So where did this all happen?
(16:21):
Let me just refer to the Near East, which is where I primarily worked in which is known as the
heartland of domestication of things like wheat and barley.
Other really common crops as well as the major livestock species of cattle and sheep and
goat and pigs.
A lot of archaeological work has been conducted across this whole region that's often referred
(16:45):
to as the fertile crescent.
Those biblical sites I referenced earlier.
That stretches from Israel all the way up through Lebanon and around into northern Syria across
South Eastern Anatolia or Turkey into north Eastern Iraq and down into the Zagros Mountains
(17:06):
of Iran.
So is that where domesticated kitties first came from?
It's not clear to me that Turkey in particular was the context for initial domestication, but
that the region was probably the idea now is that as people began to live in one place for
(17:28):
longer periods of time, that also attracted other species like mice.
The attraction of that long term human occupation with people being kind of trashy and
leaving things around attract these other animals as well as animals that prey on the animals
(17:51):
that are attracted to feeding off the refuse or garbage or stored grain.
The first sedentary communities we see in Israel are 14,000 years ago and is possible that
the relationship may have started that far back.
They are providing a real service and keeping passed down in very important stocks of these stored
(18:13):
plant resources.
Sounds like we really can say we've been friends with cats for a lot longer than assumed.
Or at least there's evidence to show that might be the case.
We see some evidence in actually Cyprus of all places.
I think it's about 10,500 years ago with a cat burial associated with humans.
(18:40):
Even though that skeleton of that cat looks to be like a wild cat, cats aren't native to
Cyprus.
So it's thought that they were actually brought there by humans and the association with humans
indicates to the people that excavated it that it's developed some sort of a social bond with
human because it was intentionally buried.
(19:02):
We see cats with a Near Eastern heritage showing up in sites as far removed as in Poland.
Fascinating cats were loved all across the world.
I definitely hope I can go on a world tour of these places some day.
There's just one remaining question I have.
(19:25):
An animal will be partly domesticated.
I've heard that about cats.
There's sort of a trope out there that cats are only partially domesticated.
They retain more of these wild behaviors and I really don't think that's quite true.
They come from a very different type of animal than the dog with the wolf.
(19:47):
The wolf are very social animals and I think the dogs are really played on that socialization
and their unique ability to develop social bonds with their humans and cats come out of animals that are
much more solitary.
And so in many ways, their behavior harkens back to that initial behavior.
This brings us back to Dr. Vitali's earlier points about tame behaviors and domesticated
(20:11):
animal populations.
You still have tame individuals that are cats but you also have non-tayne individuals.
But you have that in any population.
It's the same with wolves that certain individuals are less tame than others.
The more tame individuals will do more well around human settlements, whether that's because
(20:31):
humans tolerate them more because hey, that wolf is not fighting me.
I'm going to let them eat the scraps or because humans went out and got those wolves because
they had a reduced flight distance from the person.
They were more willing to interact or to stay around.
And within the scientific community, there is argument whether cats are fully domesticated or not.
(20:53):
But again, I think when you're talking about a species versus an individual, how can you
have a half domesticated individual?
Maybe you can but that's something that's not really clearly laid out.
What is a domesticated animal?
And if we're talking about an evolutionary change over time from an ancestor, that's our definition.
(21:16):
I'm not sure how you can have a semi domesticated individual cat.
So when your kitty has the zoomies or it's not responding, quite the way you would expect
it to based on dog behaviors or other domesticated animals you can train to do human-like
things, that really doesn't mean they're not fully domesticated.
(21:38):
Doctors here has a really interesting point.
They are the consummate domesticate because what they've managed to do is totally domesticate
their owners who do all these things for them and then get bitten.
And when return and don't get undying on questionable love.
(21:58):
Okay, whoa.
Newsflash.
We were domesticated by cats.
Hey, that's a truth.
I know we all joke about how our cats have trained us to do certain things.
I mean, looks like that's kind of how it all started.
I have a feeling that the first people were just as charmed by the cuteness of kitty cats as we are now.
(22:26):
You know what?
Let me change my earlier statement.
I am taking it personally that cats were excluded from ancient texts.
Sounds like they've been around for a long time.
It said, not all ancient texts excluded kitties.
We are going to go there.
(22:48):
Everything is within 60 degrees of cats.
Please check out the show notes where a few greater deep dives into this relatively simplified
discussion are available.
Big thanks to the amazing Dr. Kirsten Vitaly and Melinda Zeder and thanks to my team, which is
me, Captain Kitty.
Yes, fine.
(23:10):
You are the executive producers, being in snuggle.
60 degrees of cats is produced, written, edited and hosted by yours truly, Captain Kitty,
aka Amanda Beat.
Please subscribe to our mailing list by visiting tinyurl.com/60g of cats or find us on all
(23:33):
those social media platforms.
And for my paid subscribers.
You'll have access to the extra audio with more deep dives by our experts.
This and all episodes are dedicated to the misunderstood, the marginalized, the resilient, and
the weird.
And of course, all the cats we've loved and lost.
(24:05):
I always had cats ever since I was a little girl.
My family were dog people, but I was drawn to cats.
So I've had quite a history of cat keeping starting with Mr. Makulo when I was a little girl.
I currently have a very grumpy 15 year old female named Annie, who is in a line of grumpy
(24:27):
female cats that I seem to be drawn to.
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