Quasi Domestication?

                                  African Wild Cat                        Domesticated House Cat

The African wild cat and the domesticated house cat show similar morphological resemblances. Dr. Carlos Driscoll believes that these similarities are caused by the fact that cats invited themselves into our lives or rather that they underwent a process of what he calls "self-domestication". Driscoll has shown that most domestic cats are related to the descended from a Middle Eastern wildcat and became what we know today through a process of behavioral selection that begun12,000 years ago (1).

Excavation at the site of Shillourokambos in Cyprus has discovered a tomb with a cat burial in association with human remains which date from 7,500-7,000 B.C. Due to the islands distance from the continent this discovery has been viewed as human's intentional introduction of a domesticated, or at least tame, cat species to the island.  Dr. Jean-Denis Vigne explains that this process of self-domestication could have started due to the fact that "cats were attracted into the villages because mice came to eat the stored grain” (2).

Shillourokambos Cat Skeleton Cast

               
References
1. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/brief_cats.html?c=y&page=1
2. http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/292.htm