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China’s First Domestic Cats Took the Silk Road 1,400 Years Ago, New Study Finds

The analysis found the oldest domestic cat dated to the Tang Dynasty, when trade was at its peak.

Spring Play in a Tang Garden Unidentified artist Copy after Xuanzong. 18th century. Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Handscroll; ink and color on silk. (Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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By Min Chen

March 13, 2025
6:21 pm
Los Angeles, CA

Domestic cats first stepped paw in China more than a millennium ago, a new study has found. Their route in? Quite likely, they hitched a ride along the Silk Road. A team of Chinese researchers has conducted a genomic analysis of 22 ancient cat bones gathered from 14 sites across the country, representing China’s largest assemblage of feline remains. The collection includes artifacts from the ancient settlement of Quanhucun in western China, where cat bones dating back more than 5,000 years were discovered in 2013. The study saw researchers sequencing the mitochondrial DNA in the remains before comparing their results with data of worldwide cat genetics. Among the dataset were 14 bones belonging to individual domestic cats, with the oldest originating from Tongwan City in Shaanxi and radiocarbon-dated to

Domestic cats first stepped paw in China more than a millennium ago, a new study has found. Their route in? Quite likely, they hitched a ride along the Silk Road.

A team of Chinese researchers has conducted a genomic analysis of 22 ancient cat bones gathered from 14 sites across the country, representing China’s largest assemblage of feline remains. The collection includes artifacts from the ancient settlement of Quanhucun in western China, where cat bones dating back more than 5,000 years were discovered in 2013.

Spring Play in a Tang Garden. Unidentified artist. Copy after Xuanzong. 18th century. (Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The study saw researchers sequencing the mitochondrial DNA in the remains before comparing their results with data of worldwide cat genetics. Among the dataset were 14 bones belonging to individual domestic cats, with the oldest originating from Tongwan City in Shaanxi and radiocarbon-dated to 730 C.E., during the Tang Dynasty.

A russet jade cat. Han dynasty. The recumbent feline with feet tightly tucked under its body, the face carved with whiskers and large eyes ending in an upturned tail, all wrapped within a cloth tied in a knot.(Photo: Bonhams)

According to the team’s study, not yet peer-reviewed, the finding “undermines the commonly held assumption that domestic cats were present in China as early as the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.–220 C.E.).” Which is not to say that cats did not have an earlier presence in China: the analysis found that wild leopard cats (P. bengalensis), such as the Quanhucun specimen, were living in human settlements before 3,400 B.C.E., some four millennia before domestic cats came on the scene.

The domestic cats in the study were also clustered in the mitochondrial DNA group of clade IV-B. This genetic signature, the researchers noted, is rarely found among domestic cats in Europe and Western Asia—but is akin to that of a cat found in the medieval city of Dhzankent in Kazakhstan. Uncovered in 2020, that pet was dated to 775 and 940 C.E. and likely a sickly creature cared for by the nomadic Oghuz tribe. It is the oldest known domestic cat found on the Silk Road.

Consequently, the researchers suggest that the arrival of domestic cats in East Asia could have been facilitated by the Silk Road. The Tang Dynasty (618–907 C.E.), from which the oldest cat in the study hails, saw peak activity along the legendary trade network, which boosted the exchange of goods and ideas between China, India, and Persia. It’s not improbable that merchants from the West could have carried cats on their journey to East Asia.

Thomas Allom, Cat Merchants and Tea Dealers. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

“Before now, there was just speculation,” one of the study’s co-authors, Shu-Jin Luo of Peking University, told Science. “This is the first scientific evidence.”

And what cats were they? The study’s earliest domestic cat was a healthy tomcat with all-white or partially white short fur, making it “a fancy, exotic pet,” said Luo. The researchers further carried out a survey of 33 paintings from the Tang Dynasty and found that 85 percent of the cats depicted bore white coats (as do most of the modern domestic cats in East Asia compared to felines from around the world, according to the study).

Detail. Animals, Flowers and Birds. 19th century, Qing dynasty (1644–1911). Album of eight leaves; ink and color on paper. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons )

These resplendent felines didn’t just dwell in humble homes but were welcomed in royal residences. For one, the earliest Chinese literary references to domestic cats quotes one of Tang Emperor Gaozong’s concubines, Consort Xiao, cursing out her rival Wu Zetian, who had ordered her execution: “I’ll be a cat in my next life and may you come back as a rat, so I can tear your throat out for eternity!” Wu forbade the keeping of cats in the palace following the threat.

“Ancient Chinese people even performed specific religious rituals when bringing a cat into their homes,” Luo told Live Science, “viewing them not as mere possessions but as honored guests.”

Source: artnet