Thanks to all the coauthors!

This was a major collective effort, led by @mdemartino.bsky.social and @claottoni.bsky.social, and involving many collaborators in Europe and other regions. @erc.europa.eu #ercfelix @naturalsciences-be.bsky.social #NationalGeographic #aDNA #cats🐈🐈‍⬛

Stay tuned! These genomes tell a fascinating story about the evolutionary roots of our pet companions 🧬😺

🗞️You can read our publication here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The full story of how cats became our global companions is still unfolding… and we’re getting close 🫣

But big gaps remain! Right now, the genetic diversity of North African and Levant wildcats is represented by just five individuals from Morocco, Tunisia, and Israel. More ancient and modern genomes are needed, especially from Egypt, a key and yet uncovered region 🗝️

Altogether, our findings point to a broader, more complex domestication process that may have involved multiple regions, multiple cultures and multiple wildcat populations 🌍

⏱️The earliest European domestic cat genomes appeared at multiple Roman imperial sites across Italy, Austria, Serbia, and England, suggesting that the Romans imported cats and spread them rapidly through their vast commercial and military networks

So, domestic cats arrived in Europe only 2000 years ago! This means millennia after the Neolithic, and most likely from North Africa rather than the Levant 😳

1️⃣First, cats from Northwest Africa were brought to Sardinia, where they founded the island’s present-day wildcat population.🐈

2️⃣Then, a later dispersal event, around 2,000 years ago, was responsible for the introduction of domestic cats from North Africa into Europe.🐈‍⬛

So, what did we learn? 🧐

Our results suggest that at least two genetically distinct cat populations were introduced to Europe between 2000 and 3000 years ago :

We analysed 70 ancient cat genomes from Europe and Anatolia, spanning the last 11000 years. We also generated 17 low- to mid-coverage genomes from modern and museum specimens of wildcats across Italy (including Sardinia), Bulgaria, and North Africa 🗺️

People love cats !!!😻 They are globally distributed and among the most popular pets, yet, as familiar as these creatures are, the timing and circumstances of their domestication and dispersal remain uncertain🤔