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To identify whether cats were brought to China beyond 5,000 years ago or were just made domestic at that period, there are two hypotheses that have been put forward.

Scientists from the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) had a joint collaboration with teams from the United Kingdom and China. They tried to identify the species of cats from remains that were found in Chinese agricultural settlements, approximately in 3500 BC.

Results of the investigation showed that the remains go back to the leopard cat, Prionailurus bengalensis. It is a distant relative of the western wildcat, Felis silvestris lybica. That was the origin from which all modern domesticated cats came from, which indicated that cats were domesticated in the country much before the time period of 3,000 BC as had been thought, according to the center's press release.

Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences found cat bones in northern Chinese agricultural settlements in 2001. The bones were dated from 3,500 BC. Yet there is no clue as to whether it showed a relationship between humans and cats at that period, or whether it showed the arrival of the first domestic cats.

Today, there are four species of small cats in China. But before this study, the remains of the western wildcat was never found out.

Scientists tested the remains with the help of a geometric morphometric analysis, which could find out the species of small cat bones when ancient DNA was not present. With the help of mandibles of five cats from Shaanxi and Henan from 2500 to 2900 BC, the team found that all the bones came from the leopard cat, which still prevails in Eastern Asia.

Studies show that the leopard cat, not the western wildcat, was the species that began to build up some closeness with humans. Like other North American cats, domestication began to be related to the beginning of agriculture.

The findings were published in the Jan. 22,2016 issue of PLOS One.