ACBS 160D1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 33: Shillourokambos, Felis, Bastet

• School: University of Arizona
• Department: Animal & Comp Biomed Sciences
• Course: ACBS 160D1
• Professor: H.Steklis, N.Steklis

Document Summary

All domestic cats (felis catus) derived from felis silvestris lybica, which had wide distribution over north african and western africa. 5 genetic clusters over range but only one f. s. lyrica is ancestral to domestic cats. ~9,500 bp pre-domestication or fully domesticated? (co-burial with human on. Probably attracted to human settlements with cultivated grain, that attracted rodents (house mouse - mus domesticus) - which has moved from northern. Cats don"t fit pattern of other domesticated species of being pre-adapted for domestication. Cats are solitary hunters that don"t obey commands, they have their own. Body shape of kittens intrinsically appears to human nurturing system. Bones at hallan cemi include wild cat ~10,500 bp. The presence of the remains of morphologically wild cats among the diverse array of small carnivores in assemblages from the first sedentary settlements in the near east. Suggest that cats were among a group of commensal animals that took advantage of the prey opportunities afforded by these early settlements.