Five-thousand years before it was immortalized in a British nursery rhyme, the cat that caught the rat that ate the malt was doing just fine living alongside farmers in the ancient Chinese village of Quanhucun, a forthcoming study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Scienceshas confirmed.
“At least three different lines of scientific inquiry allow us to tell a story about cat domestication that is reminiscent of the old ‘house that Jack built’ nursery rhyme,” said study co-author Fiona Marshall, PhD, a professor of archaeology and interim chair of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
Read the full story in The Source: Cat domestication traced to Chinese farmers 5,300 years ago
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