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New genetic research is forcing scientists to rethink the long-standing story of how cats entered human life.
For years, researchers believed domestication began around the first farming settlements in the Middle East more than 10,000 years ago. That view shaped academic writing and popular science explanations but new evidence now tells a different and more specific story.
Two separate peer-reviewed studies, published in Science and Cell Genomics, show that cats formed close ties with humans far later than assumed.
The research points to North Africa, not early Levantine farming villages, as the central region where domestication truly began. The findings show a rapid spread during the last 2,000 years, driven by Mediterranean trade networks and later the Roman Empire.
Together, they offer a sharper timeline for how one of the world’s most common pets first entered human history.
The study led by Claudio Ottoni of the University of Rome Tor Vergata, examined 225 ancient cat specimens from Europe and nearly 100 archaeological sites, including regions of what is now Türkiye.
The team produced 87 genomes from ancient and modern cats and found a consistent pattern. Cats that lived before 200 B.C.E. were not ancestors of today’s domestic cats. They were genetically close to European wildcats and lived around Neolithic communities without forming domestic relationships.
Ottoni’s team identified the earliest domestic or African wildcat lineage in Sardinia from the second century CE. National Geographic also notes the oldest known ancestral domestic cat on mainland Europe dates to the first century C.E., which matches the later-than-expected spread.
This timeline directly contradicts earlier theories that linked cat domestication to the spread of early agriculture around 6,500 years ago.
Ottoni said Mediterranean cultures in the first millennium B.C.E. played a central role. Phoenician and Punic traders transported North African cats along sea routes that linked Tunisia, Sardinia and the Iberian Peninsula.
Roman expansion then moved these cats into central and northern Europe. Ottoni said cats adapted easily to growing urban environments during the Roman era, which helped them travel quickly across regions.
Oxford University’s Greger Larson said the human-cat relationship began 3,500 to 4,000 years ago rather than 10,000.
He said the domestication process appears more specific to Egypt, which matches archaeological evidence showing that ancient Egyptians respected and mummified cats, as reported by Anadolu Agency.
Leslie Lyons, a feline geneticist at the University of Missouri who was not part of the study, said researchers continue to uncover important details. “Cats are still mysterious, and they are giving up their mysteries one whisker at a time,” she said.
Once cats began forming relationships with humans, people used them on ships to control rodents. This role helped them reach Europe only 2,000 years ago and later China through expanding trade routes.
The study led by Shu Jin Luo of Peking University, adds another dimension.
Luo’s team examined 22 sets of ancient remains from China and analysed 130 ancient and modern genomes from across Eurasia.
They found that a different species, the leopard cat, lived alongside humans thousands of years before domestic cats reached East Asia. These wildcats moved into human settlements because of rodents, but this relationship never resulted in domestication.
Luo said the two species lived together without harming each other. “Leopard cats gained from living near people, and people may have welcomed them as natural mouse hunters,” she told Anadolu.
She said people sometimes ask whether leopard cats can be kept as pets. “My answer is simple: don’t bother. Our ancestors tried it for over 3,000 years, and they failed,” she said to New Scientist.
True domestic cats arrived in China only 1,300 years ago during the Tang Dynasty. Genomic evidence links them to cats from the Middle East and Central Asia, which merchants carried along the Silk Road. This timeline aligns closely with the findings from Europe and North Africa.
The combined results of both studies show that domestication did not begin with the earliest farmers. Instead, it started in North Africa several thousand years later.
They also show that trade networks, sea routes and military expansion shaped how cats spread across continents within a short period of time.
Researchers plan to examine more ancient samples from North Africa, including fragile mummified cats from Egypt. Scientists say these remains may offer the clearest genetic evidence of exactly when domestication began.
Jonathan Losos, an evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis, said DNA from North African cats older than 2,000 years is essential. Lyons said ancient DNA work remains difficult. She described it as “tricky work” and compared it to fighting an African wildcat.
The new findings create a more detailed account of how domestic cats emerged and how they moved across regions. They also show that their rise as household companions began far later than long-standing theories claimed.
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