From leopard cats to domestic cats—tracing the 5000-year history of small felids living with ancient humans in China

The origins of domestic cats (Felis catus) in China have long been debated. This paper reviews various perspectives on this question, incorporating recent advances in ancient genomics and historical literature reviews. Our findings suggest that leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis) coexisted with humans for up to 3500 years, from the Yangshao period (5000~3000 BCE) to the late Eastern Han Dynasty (184~220 CE). However, this relationship ended with the fall of the Eastern Han. Domestic cats likely arrived in China later, during the Sui-Tang period (581~907 CE), via the Silk Road from the eastern Mediterranean—challenging earlier hypotheses of a Neolithic (3500 BCE) or Han (202 BCE~220 CE) origin. Analyses of historical literature independently support this conclusion. The arrival of domestic cats displaced leopard cats from their ecological role in human settlements, hence preventing their further domestication. Furthermore, ancient DNA analysis identified the earliest confirmed domestic cat remain in China (750 CE) from Tang Dynasty at the Tongwan City site in Jingbian, Shaanxi Province, and reconstructed its appearance through genomic information. The integration of ancient genomic analysis and historical literatures has illuminated the timing and path of domestic cats’ introduction to China, offering new insights into human-animal interactions. It also reveals how two small felid species once developed commensal relationships with humans in China but ultimately followed divergent socio-cultural paths to different destinations.