Two months back we talked about the mice of Neolithic Europe, and the cats of Cyprus. Yesterday John Hawks talked about how cats crossed the Aegean. The press release was disseminated ( ineffableisland.com/2020/07/5000-years-of-history-of-domestic-cats.html); here is the full paper.
The study is Nicolaus Copernicus University at Toruń in Poland, studying the local cats 4200-2300 BC. These cats are Nubian; it is from the Nubian line that most domesticated cats descend. There also exists a "European wild cat": related to the Nubian, but not the Nubians gone feral. So those cats were already there, and not taken as domesticates.
This means the first farmers from the Near East brought Near Eastern cats with them.
The (Nubian) cat remains these Poles have found were in caves. Also they ate mostly the same food as the wildcats: they can tell from the Nitrogen-15. The wildcats have more Carbon-13; this, from small birds. So those Nubian cats abroad were feral, at least semiferal living on the villagers' fringe. Fed by the old Polish catladies no doubt. (By "Old Polish" for this period I suspect greater Old Prussian, by language.)
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