Central Natural Science Collections, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Domplatz 4, 06108, Halle (Saale), Germany.
Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Laver Building, North Park Road, Exeter, EX4 4QE, UK.
Sci Rep. 2020 Jul 9;10(1):11241. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-67798-6.
We present the earliest evidence for domestic cat (Felis catus L., 1758) from Kazakhstan, found as a well preserved skeleton with extensive osteological pathologies dating to 775-940 cal CE from the early medieval city of Dzhankent, Kazakhstan. This urban settlement was located on the intersection of the northern Silk Road route which linked the cities of Khorezm in the south to the trading settlements in the Volga region to the north and was known in the tenth century CE as the capital of the nomad Oghuz. The presence of this domestic cat, presented here as an osteobiography using a combination of zooarchaeological, genetic, and isotopic data, provides proxy evidence for a fundamental shift in the nature of human-animal relationships within a previously pastoral region. This illustrates the broader social, cultural, and economic changes occurring within the context of rapid urbanisation during the early medieval period along the Silk Road.
我们展示了哈萨克斯坦最早的家猫（Felis catus L.，1758）的证据，这是从哈萨克斯坦早期中世纪城市占肯特（Dzhankent）出土的保存完好的骨骼，其广泛的骨骼病理学可追溯到公元 775-940 年。这个城市定居点位于北方丝绸之路的交汇处，这条丝绸之路将南部的花拉子模城市与北部伏尔加地区的贸易定居点连接起来，在公元十世纪被称为游牧民族奥古兹的首都。这只家猫的存在，本文通过结合动物考古学、遗传学和同位素数据来呈现，为先前以畜牧业为主的地区内人类与动物关系的本质转变提供了代理证据。这说明了在丝绸之路沿线的中世纪早期快速城市化的背景下发生的更广泛的社会、文化和经济变化。
