Re: Kitty Kats
wvanhou237@aol.com
9 Dec 1996 15:14:43 GMT
In article <57fe68$12d@news.snowcrest.net>, "Lorenzo L. Love"
<lllove@snowcrest.net> writes:
>
>rogerdodger@triax.com (Roger Dodger) wrote:
>-cat stuff cut out-
>>Since caring for pets is such an ingrained part of our human heritage,
>>I feel this to be a valid question for this newsgroup. Dogs have been
>>with us for 30,000 years, what about the kitty cat.
>
>30,000 years? Where do you get that figure? The date I alway hear for the
>domestication of dogs was 12,000 to 14,000 years ago.
>
>Lorenzo L. Love
Since I have been out of S.A.P. for a couple weeks I missed the
"cat stuff".
that was cut.-----R.D. might find the answer in why dogs and cats would be
usefull
to pre-hist. men. Canine type animals are pack hunters. Usually family
groups that
stay together and do cooperative hunting. Coyotes, which we commonly think
of
as loners form packs where the food supply is plentifull. A timber wolf,
if raised
in human company, will consider himself part of a human "pack". As long as
the wolf is reminded of his subordinate position in the pack he poses no
danger
to the human members. With his superior nose , speed, and a natural
instinct
to bring larger game to "bay" untill help arrives , any canine would have
been a
valuable addition to a hunter-gatherer society. They might even have been
an
emergency food supply. ( Remember the comments by the Mountain Men about
how good a fat puppy stew was?)
Other than a lion pride I can't think of any family group of large
or small cats
that stay together any longer than it takes the young to learn to hunt.
When would
it have been advantageous to the humans and the cats to learn to
cooperate? Cats weren't domesticated just because they were cute. ( No
matter what my sister says . 8>). How about the time in the neolithic
when people could raise enough
grain etc. to need to store some? Even today one of the least desirable
things
around grain storage is rodents. What better to keep rodents under control
than
a few resident small cats?
W F VAN HOUTEN
Older. But wiser ?
|