
The earliest domestic cat on the Silk Road - benbreen
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-67798-6
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bredren
Interesting to read all of the methods for determining the health of the cat
at the time of death.

Sadly, the "pathologies in the skeleton suggest that the cat from Dzhankent
had a physically challenging life."

The good news is that people cared about this cat, "They carefully cared for
and tended to this animal throughout its life, providing high quality food and
medical care."

That said, the funeral for the animal was "expedient" in that it was basically
left in a dump or "midden" (new word to me) at the end.

It is some comfort realizing how entirely human it is to care for cats.
Though, it is also possible cat toxoplasma has just been incredibly effective.

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KONAir
A tiny lion defending your foodstock didn't need an infection whispering into
pysche to be loved :3

Edit: also consider the entertainment they provide.

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njharman
Am I the only one who was confused by title. Thinking it was about illegal
animalnsales on dark web?

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RIMR
Cryptokitties, but you're buying cats on the Internet with Bitcoin.

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tus88
The world needs more of this kind of important research.

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tuatoru
Yeah, you get domesticated cats where there are grain crops, but not with
nomadic herding.

So this kind of thing provides information about the time of the transition
from pastoral to agrarian societies.

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microtherion
> Yeah, you get domesticated cats where there are grain crops

Right. You need grain crops to make cheezburgers, after all.

