“If it can truly be said that people train cats, rather than the other way around, human-feline bonding apparently had its start at least 9,500 years ago – about 5,000 years earlier than previously thought.

French archaeologists, excavating a grave in Cyprus, have found the remains of a person, some buried offerings and the curled-up skeleton of a cat. Everything about the grave, dated at about 7500 B.C., suggested to the discoverers that the cat probably had as favored a place in the life of the departed person as that of your dear Daddles or Willie or whatever the name of the little master of the house.” — New York Times