tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6760875.post971867866075038751..comments2023-11-02T10:29:04.103+00:00Comments on Egyptology News: Egyptians not the first to domesticate catsAndiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03342690442454499340noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6760875.post-26289397176457025132007-06-30T12:23:00.000+01:002007-06-30T12:23:00.000+01:00I'm not convinced the Cretan cat was a domesticate...I'm not convinced the Cretan cat was a domesticate- when this was released some time back, the cat skeleton was merely 'associated' with a nearby human grave, but with no indication that it was purposely buried, or anything else to indicate more than the bare fact that a cat skeleton was found.<BR/><BR/>About the 'domesication theory'- except for the change of location, this is the way that Jaromir Malek* proposed domestication happened in AE. AFAICT, they just changed the location. AE art is full of representations of small cats, even pre-Egyptian domestication. I'm not aware of any feline art in other ANE countries except for the great cats until much later. And I'm also not aware of any small cat bones being found in ANE countries like you find in Egypt.<BR/><BR/>The genome project also had an interesting paragraph- cat's coat color. Cloning cats was fashionable (and expensive) here a few years ago- the first cloned cat had a completely different coat than its 'parent', even though the DNA was 100% identical! In coat color at least, cats are polymorphic. Cat DNA should also indicate a huge degree of sameness between animals- for organ transplants in modern domesticates, there isn't the need for elaborate tissue marking matches as in human transplants- ie you can transplant organs (usually kidneys) from one cat to another without risk of rejection syndrome or other auto-immune response.<BR/><BR/>kat newkirk<BR/><BR/>*Malek, Jaromir, _The Cat in Ancient Egypt_, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas, c. 1993Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com