New findings from the Egyptian city of Hierakonpolis (which is even older than the pyramids) might have uncovered evidence that cats and humans have actually been putting up with each other way longer than what was previously believed.

The human-cat relationship was long thought to date to roughly 1950 B.C. Another discovery made in China also suggests that cats started hanging around humans once we took up agriculture.

But after the archeologists discovered a pit containing 6 jungle cats, they are now convinced that the relationship might actually be 2,000 years older than what was previously estimated:
A group burial from around 3700 B.C.E. included a young adult jungle cat featuring a healed bone fracture. This indicates "the animal had been tended to for several weeks prior to its sacrifice," which means it was a domestic cat—at least for the final stage of its life.

"It is clear that there was a close relationship with humans that predate the oldest accepted evidence for domestic cat in Egypt by almost two millennia," writes a research team led by Wim Van Neer of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.
If sacrificing cats was really how this relationship got started, than it's no wonder our feline friends periodically shred our clothes and barf on our carpets. Who knew cats could hold a grudge for so long?

[Pacific Standard]