We’ll never know for sure, but just knowing how cats are today, I believe the hypothesis that they initiated it. The idea that people went out and brought in wild cats to keep down the rodent population doesn’t seem as likely as cats going where the food is and people tolerating them because they killed the rodents (and the kittens being cute also probably helped).
I support the theory that it was the cats who started it. They are also only partially domesticated. When humans began farming grains the rodent population near them exploded. Cats who were less timid around humans got more rodents. Humans seeing the value of having cats fed the cats during times when the rodent population was low.
If you’ve ever been around feral barn cats this pattern is the same today. They are constantly on the edge of being wild/domesticated.
We’ll never know for sure, but just knowing how cats are today, I believe the hypothesis that they initiated it. The idea that people went out and brought in wild cats to keep down the rodent population doesn’t seem as likely as cats going where the food is and people tolerating them because they killed the rodents (and the kittens being cute also probably helped).
I support the theory that it was the cats who started it. They are also only partially domesticated. When humans began farming grains the rodent population near them exploded. Cats who were less timid around humans got more rodents. Humans seeing the value of having cats fed the cats during times when the rodent population was low.
If you’ve ever been around feral barn cats this pattern is the same today. They are constantly on the edge of being wild/domesticated.