Cats of Fertile Crescent

Scientists from the America's National Cancer Institute and University of Oxford in England are now saying that your house cat's origin was traced to the Near Eastern Wildcat of Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq. They were able to trace the lineages of modern domestic cats to five matriarchs by following mitochondrial dna.

national geographic quoted Carlos Driscoll of the National Cancer Institute saying:

"The cats just sort of domesticated themselves. People today know that you can't keep a cat inside [without barriers], and 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent you couldn't just shut the window."

the early house cats probably helped humans kill rats as they started farming, and migrated as with humans as we scattered. they are liking this to our human "out of africa" migration.

fascinating, wouldn't you say?