How your cat ended up on your lap: A book challenges the history of the domestication of the most popular feline

https://english.elpais.com/society/2025-12-13/how-your-cat-ended-up-on-your-lap-a-book-challenges-the-history-of-the-domestication-of-the-most-popular-feline.html#

How your cat ended up on your lap: A book challenges the history of the domestication of the most popular feline

Archaeologist and anthropologist Jerry Moore reviews the findings that explain a relationship marked first by fear and then by mutual interest and admiration

PATRICIA FERNÁNDEZ DE LIS
Madrid - DEC 12, 2025 - 23:30 EST

Jerry Moore recounts how the question struck him one evening in his living room. This archaeologist and writer had his cat on his lap; he gazed at it intently, and pondered: “How on earth did this get here?” The answer to his question is Cat Tales: A History (Thames & Hudson), a vast and ambitious book, written from the perspectives of archaeology and anthropology, in which Moore takes us on a journey spanning from the Pliocene era of terrifying saber-toothed beasts to Instagram cat videos. It is a history of thousands of years of coexistence, from mutual predation to happy domestication, demonstrating that the question Moore posed has a very complex answer.

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