{"id":598031,"date":"2025-11-27T22:46:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T22:46:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/598031\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T22:46:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T22:46:15","slug":"cats-became-our-companions-way-later-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/598031\/","title":{"rendered":"Cats became our companions way later than you think"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">In true feline style, cats took their time in deciding when and where to forge bonds with humans. <\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to new scientific evidence, the shift from wild hunter to pampered pet happened much more recently than previously thought &#8211; and in a different place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A study of bones found at archaeological sites suggests cats began their close relationship with humans only a few thousand years ago, and in northern Africa not the Levant. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They are ubiquitous, we make TV programmes about them, and they dominate the internet,&#8221; said Prof Greger Larson of the University of Oxford.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;That relationship we have with cats now only gets started about 3.5 or 4,000 years ago, rather than 10,000 years ago.&#8221; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In true feline style, cats took their time in deciding when and where to forge bonds with humans.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-598031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}