{"id":772,"date":"2026-04-23T19:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/for-millennia-adorable-little-felines-roamed-among-ancient-chinese-people\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T19:26:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T18:26:16","slug":"for-millennia-adorable-little-felines-roamed-among-ancient-chinese-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/for-millennia-adorable-little-felines-roamed-among-ancient-chinese-people\/","title":{"rendered":"For Millennia, Adorable Little Felines Roamed Among Ancient Chinese People"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Although domestic cats arrived in China via the Silk Road, it turns out that over the course of previous millennia the locals had another \u201ccompanion feline\u201d: <em>Prionailurus bengalensis<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Sustainable Coexistence<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Analysis of the remnants of 22 animals from 14 ancient settlements scattered across the country shows that the <strong>leopard cats<\/strong> lived alongside local populations for nearly 3,500 years. About the size of a typical domestic cat, these Asian-origin felines, distinguished by their spotted coats that recall a far more formidable species, would have helped curb the spread of rodents.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">Pourquoi les capybaras ne se font-ils pas d\u00e9vorer par les ca\u00efmans ?<\/span><\/section>\n<p>The oldest documented example dates to around 5,400 years ago, in the Neolithic era, <em>P. bengalensis<\/em> disappears from archaeological records around 150 CE. According to the study authors, published in the journal <em>Cell Genomics<\/em>, this trajectory could reflect the profound social and economic upheavals that shook <strong>China<\/strong> following the collapse of the Han dynasty.<\/p>\n<p>Lower harvests would have led to a drastic reduction in rodent populations, prompting inhabitants to part ways with their four-legged companions. A situation echoing the durable disappearance of black rats in Europe, following the fall of the Roman Empire.<\/p>\n<p>It took six centuries before this gap was filled, as evidenced by the first remains of domestic cats found in China, from the city of Tongwan, an important Silk Road trading outpost. Genetic analyses indicate a close kinship with populations of the Levant and Central Asia, reinforcing the idea of an introduction by merchants originating from those regions.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">Une d\u00e9couverte intrigante : les abeilles adaptent leurs mouvements de danse \u00e0 leur public<\/span><\/section>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"cssc-content-video-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"A Palawan leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis heaneyi) at the Plzen Zoo in the Czech Republic.\" width=\"680\" height=\"383\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/qpQ3Oqd8i9A?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A Notable Return<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>C\ufeff\u2019est \u00e9galement \u00e0 cette \u00e9poque que les petits <strong>f\u00e9lid\u00e9s<\/strong> ont fait leur retour dans la culture chinoise, avec des repr\u00e9sentations notamment trouv\u00e9es sur des s\u00e9pultures associ\u00e9es \u00e0 la dynastie Tang (VII\u1d49 au Xe si\u00e8cle de notre \u00e8re).<\/p>\n<p>Le fait que pr\u00e8s de 85 % des chats repr\u00e9sent\u00e9s dans les peintures anciennes soient blancs sugg\u00e8re que les anciennes \u00e9lites locales affectionnaient particuli\u00e8rement les animaux au pelage clair.<\/p>\n<p>Globalement, ces d\u00e9couvertes indiquent que la fin du \u00ab\u202f<em>commensalisme entre l\u2019Homme et le chat l\u00e9opard<\/em>\u202f\u00bb, retourn\u00e9 \u00e0 la vie sauvage, a essentiellement co\u00efncid\u00e9 avec la domestication du chat sauvage africain et sa diffusion en Europe.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">Le quagga, cet \u00e9quid\u00e9 singulier chass\u00e9 jusqu\u2019\u00e0 l\u2019extinction au XIXe si\u00e8cle<\/span><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[174,276,443,1049,1047,1046,531,1048],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-adorable","tag-among","tag-ancient","tag-chinese","tag-felines","tag-millennia","tag-people","tag-roamed","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":774,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions\/774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}