The cat buried beside a humanOne of the most remarkable clues to this ancient relationship was discovered on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.In the Neolithic settlement of Shillourokambos, archaeologists found the remains of a human and a cat buried about 9,500 years ago, alongside objects including shells and polished stones. The similar preservation of the remains and their placement strongly suggested that the two had been deliberately buried together.The discovery was particularly significant because cats were not native to Cyprus. Humans must have brought them to the island, meaning that people and cats were already travelling together thousands of years before the rise of the great civilizations of antiquity.The grave is considered the earliest known archaeological evidence of a special relationship between humans and cats. But it does not necessarily mean that cats were already fully domesticated at that point.
