ArchaeoCafé - Episode 2-34 - Palaeofelinology: An interview with Claudio Ottoni

Grab your travel at a cup of coffee, zero listening to Archaeocafé. I'm your host, Otis Crabdale. Welcome to another episode of Archaeocafé. Hi, I'm Otis and today I'm talking with Claudio Octoni at the University of Rome, Torre Vergata in Rome, Italy. Welcome to the podcast. Hello, hi, Horis. That's very great to be here and thanks a lot. That's going to be fun time for me here. I think we've got an interesting talk ahead of us as well. It's interesting to hear more from you. So, you're a biologist, but you have a big interest in the past. What got you interested in these two fields? Yes, well, let's say it's been during my master thesis. That's back to 2004 that I started to work in the molecular biology lab here in Rome, headed by Professor Olga Riccars and she had, she was running projects on Ishin, DNA. So, analyzing the DNA from archaeological remains, back then I was studying humans. But then it was in 2009 that I moved to Belgium for postdoctoral fellowship. And there I interacted and I worked a lot on projects involving the analysis of foundal remains. And it's there that I met Professor Wim van Neer and the body cooperated to popular zorkology is working in Northern Africa and the Near East. And that's our base at the National History Museum in Belgium. It's actually the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. And this is where, let's say, beginning 2010-11, then I started analyzing samples in the context of their projects. So, analyze big samples and then later, like, as we will see, cat samples. And that's, you know, studying and investigating domestication from the perspective of ancient DNA is a popular topic. So, let's see what the DNA can tell us in terms of how humans interacted with animals in the past. So, that's how everything started, let's say, mostly during my postdoc in Belgium, in Lovin, in particular. Yeah. What is the most interesting place that you've done work? Yeah, well, as a small echoronbiologist, my work was strictly, strictly confined, let's say, in laboratories. And I was traveling, let's say, with the samples that were processing. So, I was receiving samples from several archaeological sites, as I said, Northern Africa, the Near East. I also happened to make sampling myself of archaeological material, but mostly in a museum and university institutions. So, we're talking of collections of archaeological remains, and probably the most interesting experiences been at the Natural History Museum of London, where I got access to today, Egyptian mamis collection, cat mamis. And that was very cool, because that took quite a long time to get the permissions. But finally, I could pull my hands on this hidden, you know, storage places of the museums, where they are collecting these animal mamis. And it was very nice cat mamis, but also baboon mamis, IBCs, crocodiles. That was really interesting. They have a very large collection there, then. Yes, yes. I think it's always interesting to do a museum work, because, first of all, you're re-looking at some stuff that people might have studied decades or even centuries ago. And a lot of museums have these large collections of different stuff that is just waiting for someone to come along to ask a new question, come up with a new method to analyze some of these collections. Yeah, I loved it, really. And it's like, it's really digging into the past, but it's not just about centuries, I don't know, millennia, history. It's also funny, because you mentioned it sometimes, it's collections of people that started these remains, maybe even 100 years ago, and to have a look, maybe at the labels that they wrote, 50, 80, 90 years ago, which is very nice and neat and rising. That was really cool. A real dive in the past, let's say. Yeah, I've seen some that almost looked like it's calligraphy, and they've written the labels onto things, or if there's a piece of paper attached. Nowadays, I mean, some people will write very neatly today, but it tends to look very similar to the way you will see it on the computer screen with very standard lines. A lot of this was like or neat writing, so some of these old labels are quite interesting. One of the big subjects that you're investigating is cats, particularly domesticated cats and their history. What are the earliest evidences of cats, wild or domestic, cohabiting with or depending on at least partially humans? Yes, so that about cats, there is plenty of evidence. Let's say that traditionally the general belief was that cats were domesticated in Egypt. So for a long time, scholars and people in general were relying on the iconography and the evidence from funeral context from each. With that regard, we knew that cats were very popular in part to during the first millennium BC. So we're talking, yes, 3000 years ago. And back then, we know that there are iconographic evidence of cats depicted in domestic context. It's very popular that the team of the cat under the chair, but cats were also depicted in funeral context. So this is where we know that cats were interacting in a way of speaking, they were at ease with Egyptian people because they appeared in these domestic context. And so that's when the popular belief was established that cats were domesticated in Egypt. We also know that there was this cult dedicated to the goddess Bastet and a lot of cats were killed and mummified as voodoo offerings to the goddess Bastet and really, really hundreds and thousands of cats were mummified. There has been really a huge production. But then, let's say, apart from this traditional belief, then actual zirculological study is conducted at the beginning of the New millennia. Let's say it was 2004, the Janine Vignia conducted a study on cat remains in Cyprus. And let's say that the most important findings about cats in Cyprus is related to a burial in the site called Shilurokambos, which is dated to, let's say, 9,500 years ago. And these cats was buried intentionally by humans in association with a human burial. And so the idea there was some kind of link between this cat and that human that was buried there. So such that it was real spiritual link, that's what the authors claim. And apart from this evidence that will testify to a close bond to a closer relationship between humans and cats, there was also the evidence that in Cyprus in general, felids are not narrative to the island. And we know that necessarily their presence means that they were taken there by humans. And the earliest evidence of cats in Cyprus is dated to even earlier than the burial that I mentioned. They are dated to 11,000 years ago, at sites such as the Climonas. So the presence of cats 11,000 years ago in Cyprus are probably suggesting that they were taken there by humans in particular by agricultural list of the events. So the early farmers that, let's say, move to Cyprus and were probably taken there by humans. with them cats. And then of course this is the earliest archaeological evidence but there is more evidence also from Egypt that is actual archaeological evidence that is let's say adding up to to the picture that was first constructed by iconography and this is the study I'm talking of the study by Wim van Neer where he investigated the site it's the name of the site is Yira Compolis in Egypt and he found a cemetery of animals in this site and he investigated in particular a burial of cats. He found six cats buried in this at Yira Compolis and these cats were intentional buried there and the idea is that humans probably were probably controlling the reproductive cycle of these cats because just by analyzing you know the the the ages of these cats they identified four kittens and two adult cats but these these these kittens belong to different liters and so by by doing this age analysis they understood that probably the natural reproductive cycle of the cats was let's say changed and controlled by humans so that was a I indicative of possible early taming of cats so of actual interaction between humans and cats that involves the a change in their biological and reproductive cycle so these are probably the key findings cyprus and Egypt in terms of zorocheology that are testifying to the initial relationship between humans and cats. So far we've heard about domesticated cats or cats which started down the road towards domestication what are the oldest known remains of a clearly domesticated cat one that was definitely not a wild cat. Yeah well that's that's in fact a tricky question I will say but that's that's let's say because of the very peculiar and I will say unconventional process of cat domestication because it's really hard to tell what is wild and what is domestic so I mean we may think of the shilurokambus cats as a domestic cat but in the sense that he had a closed connection with a with a human being but other than that we may think that for a large part of prehistory this interaction between humans and cats was largely based on on the utility of cats for human community as best control agents then possibly there was also this this kind of of link that was very intimate but to talk about an actual domestic cat I think we have to wait probably for a actual classical antiquity era so probably well in Egypt when we know the cats were in this domestic context but again I want to stress that this is really sometimes it's really hard to tell because what makes the difference is mostly the kind of relationship I would say that this is changing drastically from classical from the classical Roman times when cats really start to be dispersed and possibly there was a very strong and close connection with humans so you've mentioned a few of the very early sites where the work cats living with or interacting with humans but when and where did the domestication of cats likely start and was there one population origin or multiple how do scientists know this? yeah well that's that's also one of the key and fundamental questions in domestication studies and in general domestication studies in bio-eurocheology in cats we know that let's say the ancestor of the of all domestic cats nowadays is the northern Africa and near-Eastern sub-species of white cats that is the Phelous Sylvesteris Libica so I want I want entering into all the debates around the taxonomy I talk about the sub-species some Phelous Sylvesteris Libica these are wild cats that are geographically distributed as I said in the Near Eastern Northern Africa and we know from a genetic study of modern cats of modern wide and domestic cats that was conducted in 2007 that all domestic cats nowadays their ancestry their genetic ancestry can be traced back uniquely to this wild sub-species Libica and this was already quite an important funding because was rolling out any contributions from other wild population of cats wild sub-species we know today that there are five wild sub-species of cats apart from Libica there is the European Wildcat the South African Wildcat and then there are other two Wildcat populations in China one specifically in China and another one more widely distributed in the central and south Asia which is the Phelous Sylvesteris or Nata so this this first genetic study in 2007 was was able to pinpoint the actual origin of domestic cats uniquely to the Near-Eastern and Northern African Wildcat which of course is in line with what's the archaeology was telling us then the big question about one or multiple origins this is where we can still debate on in fact we cannot yet tell whether the two purported center of domestications that's archaeology that's archaeology are suggesting which are the let's say the Levant and Egypt whether these were two independent domestication centers or not we know for sure that domestication started in the Levant this is this this happened more than 11,000 years ago when humans started to settle down and we have early farming communities that started to stock you know cereals grains in in very let's say rudimental granaries let's say and this probably well the scenarios that this most likely attracted rodent populations rats mice and in turn this this attracted Wildcats Wildcats of the Libiga subspecies this is how the interactions started this is let's say the first encounter so more than 11,000 years ago we were talking of Levant time populations and these are the same people that then brought cats to Cyprus again in the Neolithic era right in Egypt we know that Egypt has been another major center but we don't know whether we are talking of cats that were taken from the Near-East from the Levant down southwards to Egypt and then these cats probably interacted with local cats and this in a way affected also the domestication of local Wildcats there so we on one side we may think of a sort of influence of people from the Levant taking cats to Egypt or on the other hand local Wildcats from Egypt were just independently domesticated and the question let's say the answer to this question can be given only by high resolution analysis of the genomes of these ancient cats because what what we were able to analyze so far was the mitochondrial DNA which is maternally narrated so the mitochondrial DNA genetically speaking is telling us only the history on the female side but in order to unravel whether cats from the Levant domesticated cats from the Levant were taken to Egypt and then probably they interacted with local Wildcats we have to analyze those genomes from those contexts and understand whether it was a mixture just to make you an example if we analyzed genomes of cats that mom is from Egypt and we will find a 100% signator that can be traced back to local Egyptian wascats. Then this means that we are looking at an independent domestication center, but on the other hand, if we see a genetic signals of a mixture of hybridization with cats that can be traced back to the levant, then this means that probably there was an influence from the Near-Wister and Domestication Center and so possibly we may be talking of only one main center of domestication, the levant and the Near-Wister, that influenced also the later domestication of cats in Egypt. Interesting. So you've talked a bit about when this occurred and some of the things which led to this interaction between cats and humans that could you tell us a bit more about why cat domestication occurred at this particular time and what would have been the influencing events that may have caused and what functions uses or benefits might the cats have had to humans at the time? Yeah. Yes, in fact, I mean, let's say the main main strange scenario now is the one that I already mentioned about this early farming communities that were talking cereals in this sort of fundamental granaries which was attracting mice and grass and pests, vermin. And so in a way, we know that we are in the Near-Wister and this is the place where Libica was distributed. This is also another factor of fairly seriously, because a white cat has kind of more friendly disposition towards humans compared to other white cats of species. So that's also something that is interesting to you keep in mind that domestication events are quite rare as an event and sometimes they're really, let's say, the result of multiple factors that need to go in the same direction. So here we are looking at, let's say, probably the best conditions which means humans, human communities settling down, producing food, food that was attracting a pest species that was in turn appraised species for cats and the cats were actually friendly in a way of speaking, you know what I mean? Maybe the same scenario transposed to European white cats would have not worked because the European white cat is not as friendly as the Libica cat. So it's also a matter of the behaviour of the white species, you know? European white cats, they are not as tall the run of the human presence as Libica cat. So it's really a matter of several factors that need to go in the same direction. What are some of the major differences between ancestral wild cats and modern domesticated cats today? Or what are some of the major differences between wild cats and modern house cats? Yes, that's again a tricky question in the sense that again the domestication of cats is very unconventional. I want to really underline that and highlight that because compared to other species we have a traditional domestication, let's say, process that starts from a wild phenotype and result in a domestic phenotype. This is an evolutionary process and something that even Darwin investigated and noted. But in the traditional sense we have actual changes in the phenotypes that are quite remarkable and that make it possible also when looking at archeological collection and so archeological collections to identify specific markers, right? So skeletal markers of course. But that's not the same for cats because the domestication process in cats did not lead to phenotypic changes that are comparable to other domestic species. So if you look at skeletal changes in a domestic cat and in a wild cat we cannot actually tell what is wide and what is domestic to a fine level, let's say. So of course there have been changes, there are changes but we are talking of morphological changes that occur at the level of the code, for example the fur. So when we see at physical changes we find them mostly not at the skeletal level but at the code pattern, code color for length. And these are all changes that have occurred recently because of human selection. So this is something intentionally done by humans very, very recently. Probably the most important change associated with domestication in cats is related to behavior. So this is definitely the biggest change. So when I say that it's also related to a key change in the evolution of the domestication process of cats that is when cats turn from past control agents to actual companions. So behaviorally speaking a more tolerant behavior of cats towards men and actually the development of you know turning into a companion strictly speaking this was probably the biggest change and this is not something that you can see in the far in the assemblage, it's skeletal assemblage, you know this is something that you can really investigate from the context and possibly also in part with the DNA. Don't modern cats also have longer intestine than their wild cats are? Yes, yes, yes, true, true. That's that's also a physiological change that is associated with the changes in diets. This is this is definitely something that has occurred in association with this is hard to tell of course because probably we can gain some some information and some evidence about this developmental change, developmental changes from the DNA. But of course from skeletal evidence it's hard to tell when this happens but it's possible my guess will be that this happened recently because of the introduction of processed food, industrial food let's say in the in cats diet in particular the use of even cereal based food, much of the pet food industry is based on fish but also on cereal based food so oh yeah yeah. What are some of the methods that scientists use to determine if a cat found at an archaeological site is likely a wild cat or if it started to undergo some of the domestication processes? Yeah that that relates a bit to what I explain in the sense of how hard can can be can be most of the times to tell the domestic status I mean whether something is wild or domestic just because the just because cats are very unconventional in this regard. So you know on the skeletal level it's very hard I mean there are no no big changes and it's very hard over over different contexts of history history to clearly discriminate what is why and what is domestic of course what makes the big difference huge difference is where you find that remains that they remain so if you if you find cat remains in a cave that's most likely wide behavior if you find them in a domestic context that's possibly domestic if we really want to use this dichotomy but then to really understand what was the behavior of that cats if it was like a free roaming cat in a in a urban context whether this was an actual domestic cat that belonged to to a family you know these are things that are really hard to tell and that can make the difference because a free roaming cat can easily reach subarbon environments or even forest environments and mate with wild cats whereas of course it let's say when the control of humans is straight then that cat most likely will keep mating with other domestic cats so it's I think that to pinpoint that to really unravel that it's like putting together several pieces of a jigsaw that come from from multiple disciplines and in a way it's it means also understanding the society you know of human society in that particular historical context for example and that's fascinating but also quite challenging at the same time but back to the tools I would say that while traditional zerocheology may not be that informative there are other tools like for example geometric morphometries that are promising in this regard so geometric morphometrics allows to investigate let's say to a higher resolution morphological changes on skeletal elements and for cats this is being done in particular on on mandibles this is something that we are also planning to do this has been done already again by the group version the nivine on a wildcat population so in particular Asian wild cats which do not belong anyway to to Feli's Investory species we're talking of the leopard cat in China oh yeah so that just just you this is also good example to tell how challenging this can be this study was caused conducted on Chinese remains of suppose the cat domestic cats actually multiple samples of domestic cats and these these cats were taught to be actual Feli's Sylvesteris and were taught to be domestic cats because they were found in your lithic Chinese context and a previous study demonstrated that these cats were being fed on let's say in the human food web let's say because they found signature in the so-called isotopic the so-called isotopic signature of these cats was showing that they were fed on on a serial based diet let's say or anyway they were feeding on mice that were eating cereals stuck by humans you know this is again the scenario we talked before and later this is a geometric morphomatic study demonstrated that these were not cats Feli's Sylvesteris cats but these were a totally different species the leopard cat that is taxon of the according to the linear taxonomic preonal urus bengalensis so this is to tell you different species very similar they were misunderstood in a way as as a Feli's Sylvesteris and so a totally different scenario a totally different species which anyway in your lithic China established a kind of relationship with humans that was the same as Feli's Sylvesteris and the Near East so we were talking of cats of well leopard cats that were interacting with humans as pest control agents that were most likely attracted by pests that were let's say going around the human settlement settlements in China they're into the Neolithic interesting but at these sites where they're also found Feli's Sylvesteris or it was only leopards yeah that's the thing that initially during the Neolithic what we look is a relationship between the leopard cat and humans a commensal relationship so commensalism is what drove the relationship between the Feli's species and humans in the first place in the Near East Feli's Sylvesteris and farmers in China the leopard cat and farmers but then what happens is that the cats domesticated Feli Sylvesteris cats domesticated in the Near East they were bred well let's say over the old world the relation and the African continent and when they reached Asia and China they replaced the ecological niche that was initially occupied by the leopard cat in this human settlement and so basically Feli Sylvesteris domesticated cats once they made it to China they replaced the leopard cats and they became the pest control agents of human communities and later became aquafoncane and so this is a kind of process that probably occurred also in other places we know in Drowman times that Feli's were kept also as pest control agents for example but then when actual cats made it to the to the Roman Empire they replaced the Feli's you know so this this also testified to the success of domesticated cats Feli Sylvesteris cats as pest control agents but also as companions and this is what made them so popular and and determine their global success and what about using genetics can you use genetics to try to determine whether a cat skeleton found in an archaeological site is likely a wild cat or has started to become domestic yeah yeah well genetic clizz-pegging we can definitely make distinctions between let's say the signature and the answer streets of of the five wild suspicious that we meant that I mentioned before which is very important because we know that all domestic cats originate from the near-ristern a wild cat and so this means that if at some point in history I start finding cats caring genetically near-ristern answers to this means that these cats were probably domesticated and were taken to this new place this is the this is the so-called translocation which is the the the key process that leads to to the spread of domestic animals by means of human actions which are in fact of human-mediated translocations and genetically speaking it's very interesting to to look for example at the mitochondrial DNA lineages because while they reconstruct the story on the female side and still they can be very useful to to tell us whether a cat originated from a different area so that's how genetics can for example reconstruct cat dispersal animal dispersal in general and in particular animal dispersals also associated with humans and apart from from telling whether cats were translocated of course the DNA can also tell us a lot in terms of what I mentioned before like at mixture processes selection processes driven by humans so there is a lot of there is a huge potential of course in what DNA can tell us for the process as I understand it the process of change from the original wild cats to the domestic cats of today has been a series of ongoing changes what were some of the major points in history when we can see changes in domesticated cats that have led to modern cats or put another way at what points in history did some of the big changes to the cat population occur that are present today yes I would say that if we talk if we talk of the physical changes let's say that are presents in fancy breed cats let's say of today these are changes that occurred very recently over the last 100 150 years and these are the results of artificial selection by humans there are other physical changes related again to the coat pattern the four lands called color which may be older these are in in particular related to some cat breeds from East Asia. And this may have originated already, let's say in the 13th century AD, we are talking of domestic cat populations that once spread to East Asia from the original center, let's say in the Near East. Once in Asia, they remained isolated for a long time and this process of isolation genetically speaking may amplify the accumulation of peculiar and distinct mutations that translate into phenotypic changes. And so these are so-called natural breeds, that are probably, that are in a way different from the artificial breeds that are the result of more recent events. We are talking, for example, of the Persian, the Siamese, and this far Eastern breeds. But apart from that, other key steps in these changes, I would say are related to this behavioral switch. That we believe, based on our genetic studies, are still up, putting a very hypothetical way. We believe that the big switch in behavior happened in Egypt, because this is where probably cats, by, let's say, by finding themselves in domestic context, by interacting with humans in domestic context and in particular, also because of the large, you know, process of creation of cats for votive offerings, they were priests in Egypt that were actually producing cats because of the high demands in the production of mums for votive offerings. And so these cats were often held in these temple pressings, let's say, there was a amazing process. I mean, they were probably not selected, but just by producing them, there may have been some kind of selection. Probably a selection that made cats more tolerant of humans, and that made cats also companions in a way. - And I guess having them with these large breeding programs for the offering industry, I guess a lot of them would have been in groups, living in close quarters, not only with humans, but with other cats. - Yeah. - So that maybe they switched from being a solitary animal to being tolerant of being in groups. - Yeah, yeah, that probably may have helped the process in a way, cats in the wild are very solitary. So something was definitely happening because they were really integrated in the social context of humans. And then starting from that period, anyway, we are in a classical Roman times, we start to see these cats carrying genetic lineages that can be traced back to Egypt and to Northern Africa. We start to see these cats being taken across the Mediterranean, up to Viking ports, for example. I mean, of course, in a different time, but we found cats carrying Viking lineages, sorry Egyptian lineages, in the Viking era in Germany, in the Baltic Sea. So this means that across time, these cats carrying these Egyptian lineage made it across the Mediterranean, up to Northern Europe, so they were really traveling with humans. - I'd read as well that in Egypt, there was a preference for orange furred cats, which is not so common in the wild populations, but because of this preference, or if you were going to buy a cat for an offering, it was good to have an orange furred one. And so because of this popularity, this orange furred breed expanded and it as well that the Norse also liked orange, it was a culturally preferable color for the cats and that a lot of orange cats today descend from these two points in time when orange furred cats were quite favored. - Yeah, you know, this is not surprising, I mean, because what draws selection, selective processes in cats by humans has always been aesthetic, so like physical traits. So that forks in several animals of course, but when we talk about cats, let's say the selection of physical traits, I would say it's really recent with offensive breeds, but it's possible that something happened also in the very past. We know from the iconography in Egypt that many cats were striped, let's say in terms of the cold pattern. But I would say definitely the DNA, you know, in the projects we are conducting now, we have several cat mamas and investigating the genomes, which means not just the mitochondrial DNA associated with the female story, but the actual genome, which is the contribution of several lineages, let's say, would help us to understand also the phenotype of these cats. And so on, traveling questions like this would be possible, I would say. - Thank you also noted in your research that during the time of the Ottoman Empire, a blocked pattern of the fur became predominant, became quite common. - Yes, yes, that's what we did in our first study. We focused on the mitochondrial gene, but also on this specific phenotypic trait, which is determined by trimutations. And the trait is the cold pattern and normally depending on which mutation, let's say you would find the DNA, you can tell whether the cats possessed a blotched pattern which is, let's say, more associated to the domestic status, and a typical macarole striped pattern, which is present always in the wide individuals. So we noticed that this mutation started to appear and it's infrequency increased from the Ottoman time. So we are talking of something that again is quite recent, and so again, this is possibly suggesting that what humans were looking into cats at the early stages of domestication was nothing really, was mostly related to the ability of cats to keep under control the pests and vermin. So that was a skill that cats already possessed in the wild and there was no need in a way to select more this condition. And only later, selection probably occurred at the level of behavior, like I said, and then the establishment of this more tolerant, the higher tolerance of the human presence. And finally, later again, we have the actual selection of physical traits that possibly started in historical times and the blotched pattern that we found from the Ottoman time is probably an indication of that. Of course, we have plenty of other variants that can be investigated, mostly related to color, for example, or four lengths. These are other phenotypic traits that we may be able to assess in terms of evolution when they appeared, where they appeared by investigating ancient genomes. - One of your areas of research focuses on the dispersal of domestic cats. And you've told us a bit about this already, but what methods do you use to study this? - Yeah, I would say that targeting translocations and reconstructing translocation is certainly key in cats. And you know, actually, cats are very useful in this regard also to reconstruct human migrations. They've been called as a sort of bio-proxy in this regard, because cats as animals that were in street connections with humans were traveling with them and understanding and reconstructing how this spread can tell us more about the migratory trajectory of humans as well. So for example, one way of studying that, A clear example is what I said about Cypher. Here, there we have an island in which phallid species are not native. At the moment in the archaeological last radiography, the moment we see the presence of phallid species and of cats, this means that they were taken by humans because there's no way cats can make it from the coast to Cyprus, right? So that's definitely a method that works for places where we don't have a native distribution of the animal. But then for other instances, DNA and ancient DNA is definitely helping us because we, what we do by analyzing ancient genetic variation in wild populations and let's say in a dichronic way, from pre-domestication time through domestication time up to more recent historical periods, what we want to do is to see how the genetic structure of cat populations changed. You know in the wild, let's say wild populations of animals in general, they have a pretty clear geographic genetic structure, which means their genetic variants are strictly associated with geography. So this means that investigating different wild populations from Europe, from the Near East, this translates into completely different genetic variants that are the result of separation of evolution of separate populations across time. But then what happens with domestication that humans take these animals and carry them to some other place where we see a different local population. And so this is the act of translocation and this is where ancient DNA and genetics can really tell us a lot because if in an archaeological context, we clearly see cats with a genetic signature that is completely different from the local one. This means that these are cats that were brought by humans and actually the genetic variants that we will find in those cats or more generally in those animals can also be traced back to the original place. And this is how translocations and these perstals of cats can be reconstructed. What were some of the methods by which cats spread out over the world? Yes, definitely boats, I would say just been very direct. Why? Because cats, we see this Egyptian lineage of cats, a genetic lineage that made it to several port sites in the Mediterranean, Turkey. But as I said, later on in the Viking era up to Northern Europe. And this lineage is popping up in port sites. And so that's interesting and it's probably telling us that these cats were taken on board. Most likely because they were passed control agents and so if we think of travels for trades, they were probably protecting, I don't know if they were stalking and transporting cereals and food in general. If it was to control again pests that may infest, that may be present in the boats, in the ships. But it was also for companionships. Some scholars argue for example that cats were taken also for example by Roman armies and that they were companions of soldiers. But there was this dual views of cats because on the one hand they were passed control agents and they could be used to keep under control dispets. But on the other hand they were also companions. So I would say definitely, Sifaring was one of the main ways of dispersal for cats but not necessarily. I mean there is also land routes of human trade connections. For example the Silk Road which may have determined the spread of cats to East Asia. And there was also, I can add, I can also add that cats could be also very useful for armies when they were moving across these large distances. Cats can again as best control agent could preserve leather goods, ropes, on board of ships ropes that could be damaged by rodents and rats. Interesting. I think they were used up until very recent times on ships as pest control. Yeah. And also if you have rats they can also transmit diseases. Exactly. So yes, yes. They have protection not only the food but also the health of the sailors. Yes. What are some of the most interesting results of your research into this dispersal of domestic cats? I would say definitely one of the most striking and surprising results was to find a cat carrying an Indian lineage in an Egyptian port site on the Red Sea. So back when I found this result, I mean as a biology I was not that aware of the archaeological backgrounds and for me it was like an artifact genetic artifact and I was not entirely sure that this could be really consistent. But then why when talking to these archaeologists to win Vanneer, that was really striking to him because that made total sense with what we knew about this site which is the Egyptian site of Berenike. We are in the Roman era and this port on the Red Sea was like a sort of hub point for the Indian Ocean connection, Indian Ocean trades. And so it was like the cat story that we were telling was totally in line with evidence from archaeophonic, for example archaeology. Just for example, I'm for us were found in the site that we're telling us the same story so of these clear connections with India. And so that was very surprising to me. And again, just to add on what the DNA can tell us. We found an Indian lineage but this doesn't mean that necessarily we are looking at an Indian why that was domesticated and taken to the to the to each it. The story may be complex but because this can be the result of a hybridization. So what we see is only the mitochondrial gene but this can be Indian mitochondrial gene incorporated in a nuclear DNA that can tell us a totally different story. So that cat could be a cat that is a hybrid between a Libbica cat, so a proper Libbica cat that probably early around was taken to India. And let's say hybridized and made it with a local wild cat so has to incorporate this genetic signal and its mitochondrial gene and that made the descendants of this hybrid cats were taken to Egypt in this port. And by analyzing the mitochondrial gene we may find just a relic of this ancient mixture. And again investigating the full genome can add a lot on these kind of scenarios. How long did interbreeding between wild cats and house cats continue? That's a let's say we nowadays we know that there are also programs to preserve the genetic integrity of European wild cats and there are plenty of studies analyzing present day wild cat populations in Europe for example Scotland but also Central Europe. Show how a mixture can be more or less problematic in different areas. In Scotland it's very high for example and this depends mostly on how overlapping the distributions of wild and domestic cats are in these regions. But that depends also on the behavior of the cats. It's really a complex scenario. It's a problem today for the genetic integrity of wild cat populations. hybridization and a mixture definitely happened in the past. And I would say that since the early stages of domestication and we know that also for other animals, there has always been a pretty extensive mixture between animals that had started this domestication process and wild populations. There has always been exchange and a mixture exchange of genetic material and a mixture between domesticates and local wild populations. This means that continuously genetic material from the wild was incorporated in the domestic populations. And this is in particular true for cats because cats were free to roam. There was no real real street control of humans on their breeding until maybe very recently. So I would not be surprised to find very very old episode of what mixtures in cats. And also very recent ones too. Of course yes yes definitely. This I believe this was a very common this is a very common event. I think we particularly see this even with food animals and work animals where as that species spreads out geographically people may intentionally breed them with local animals that are very similar related to. Yeah there could be an intentional action let's say by humans. And I mean again this is also to pursue some peculiar physical traits you know. So in fall it's this happens a lot and to create some breeds there has been also the hybridization with other species, fall it's species. So yes definitely. Have there been or were there any sex trends in the wild domestic interbreeding? For example wild male domestic female wild female domestic male or does it seem to have gone both ways equally? Yeah well I'm not saying I'm not totally aware of that. I mean not that I know there is no clear evidence. I mean there have been recent studies but related to wild population. So for example the Chinese cat, the Chinese wild cat and the Asian wild cat. So they saw for example there by analyzing the genomes of present day animals. They saw data in this kind of asymmetric introgression let's say. So it was like larger males were preferred by females of the Asian wild cats. You know so there was this at Mixter and it was like the female Asian wild cats were preferring larger males of the Chinese cats. So yes this happens in the wild it has been observed at least in these two species and that's what that's a recent study and the author claimed that this could be related to sites to body sites preference by the females of the Asian wild cats. There are also studies that have been conducted in Europe to to observe and to see trends or anyway at Mixter patterns between wild and domestic cats in for example in France. But it's not very consistent in the different areas. I mean for example in some region of France it's it's quite peculiar what they what they observe is that wild populations are structured the way that males it's like the surround females in the wild. And so what happens is that free roaming domestic cats that don't have access to the female to the wild females because it's too high the competition with wild mates that are basically surrounding the female population. But this is happening only in a specific region of France and it's not happening for example in Scotland where on the other hand the at Mixter is higher. So there are also these aspects at least for present day populations that have to be taken in consideration and which are very related to the to the structure of wild cat populations. So what can we learn about the history of humans from looking at the history of cats? Yes definitely. You know I think that a cat domestication is quickly connected on on an aspect of humans that is you know it's a very intimate bond and just look at how popular cats are today but how popular they were also in Egypt. So compared to other animals it's not a kind of relationship that was established based on a peculiar use of the animal. Yes the beginning cats were passed control agents and they were used for a long time up to recent also for this purpose but at some point they really began companions and if we think also to the burial in Cyprus we are in denolytic and so more than 9,000 years ago and yet there was some kind of spiritual link as this way at least the way the otters put it in their study. So it's really an intimate connection it's really an intimate connection and I believe that it can tell us a lot about about us in terms of developing this kind of relationship with animals that in particular with pets you know companion animals but other than that looking at the history of cats as I said before can tell us a lot also can add a lot in terms of reconstructed human migrations, trades if we think of of the Indian cat of the cat carrying the Indian lineage that I mentioned before this is really another line of evidence describing the Indian ocean trade or for example the way humans and farm well let's say farming communities who are moving around carrying this cat so the use of cats as bioproxies in this regard by your proxy to reconstruct past migrations and past human connections in a way is really can be really useful to learn a lot about our history. What are your plans for the future? So plans for the future we have more than five years well more than four years now ahead of us of project we hear at the University of Rome, Torvergata, I'm conducting together with my team the project that is just based on starting the domestication of cats based on ancient biomolecules so ancient DNA ancient stable isotopes which will be very important to reconstruct dietary changes in cat evolution so this is also crucial I believe understanding how carnivores carnivore carnivore animal in a way change is the dietary habits started feeding on fish or like we said with pet with recent pet food industry also the introduction as a sort of cereal based food so our project that is called Felix and in which also Wim van Meeh yeah it's pretty straightforward as a name it's based on the analysis on more than 700 archaeological remains that will be investigated for the DNA possibly and actually we really want to tackle genomic analysis to undrival at mixed or processing in the past phenotype is a selection of phenotypes in the past whether the worst selection also at the level of behavior so DNA isotopes you know it really means pinpointing and targeting different lines of evidence that can tell us a lot about the relationship of between humans and cats I really Sometimes prefer about cats talking about the relationship rather than the domestication process, just because it's so peculiar and unconventional when related to other animals. So that's the plan for the future, just a processing sample working. And I can add on this note that we also have a website that we have that we are updating constantly and it's ERC Felix.com just for those that want to keep up and to stay in the loop without our research. So hopefully we will be able just by looking at what ancient bones can tell us with ancient biomolecules, we can really try to shed more light on the on catamestication. Well, to the link to the website and the episode nest that people can follow your work. That would be great thanks. What advice would you give to people who are interested in studying Zoolarchiology? Yes, you know, I think that a key message for all those that are interested in the past, whether it's archaeology or bio-archology in the wider sense. I think it's really keeping your mind open, being ready to always interact with people from different disciplines. And communication and interaction and multidisciplinary approach, I think that's really key for studying the past. So it's not something that you can do alone just by studying the DNA, by studying only the isotopes or by studying only morphology. I think you really have to put together all these lines of evidence and then build up a story, scenarios. And it's a continuous process. So definitely multidisciplinary and mind openness, I would say. Sometimes it's really nice because you never know what to expect when trying to unravel the past. And so you may be start with a scenario in your mind, with hypotheses and data, actual data, may unravel a totally different story. And you will find yourself to be surprised of what you learn and what you discover. So that's where the open-minded process counts, I would say. Yeah, it's going to be good advice. I think that in archaeology in general, there is a lot of methodologies and background knowledge that can be adopted from other fields. And so it's a really good field for adopting these multidisciplinary approaches because there are just so many of these approaches from other fields that are very well established in them that can be adopted into archaeology. Yeah, and it's good that now you see also in our education programs at universities. You can really see that there is this way of tackling now the discipline. And so there are master programs now in bio-archeology more widely that where they offer let's say education at these different disciplinary levels. And that's I think it's really great. Yeah, there's a lot of opportunities to think. But this has been a very interesting discussion. And I think that a lot of our listeners will also find the interesting whether they're interested in archaeology or history or if they have a cut themselves in their interest in the long history that we've had with our small for-legged companions. So thank you for taking the time to tell us about this topic and about your research in particular. Thank you. Thanks, Horis. It has been really great and fun time. So thanks a lot. Yeah. What? Have a nice day? Yeah, you too, Horis. Good bye. You've been listening to the Archaeocafé podcast. For more information and news, check out our website or social media pages. Links can be found in the episode notes or simply by searching online for Archaeocafé podcast. If you have any questions or comments for the presenters or guest speakers, we'd love to hear from you. And remember. [Music]