17. Likewise, 10,000 years ago cats helped the development of agriculture
Alongside their frequent canine antagonists, domesticated cats also made a significant contribution to human history. Their primary use came from arable farmers. Whilst dogs proved really good at guarding settlements and chasing off predators, they weren’t so effective against rodents. Enter the cat, quite literally: DNA evidence shows cats lived alongside humans without being domesticated for thousands of years. They first saw off the greedy rodents that ate crops 10,000 years ago, before gradually becoming domesticated. Without cats, keeping harvested crops would have been near-impossible, and the world would look very different indeed.
