Dr. John R Bratten

Domestic cats have lived alongside human communities for thousands of years, hunting rats, mice, and other pests and serving as pets and a source of pelts and meat. Cats have received limited archaeological attention because their independence limits direct insight into human societies. An adult and juvenile cat recovered from the Emanuel Point wreck 2 (EP2) reflect what are, most likely, the earliest cats in what is now the United States. Zooarchaeological analyses of these and other archaeological cats in the Americas demonstrate that cats ranged substantially in size: some were comparable to modern house cats, and others were much smaller. Isotopic analyses of the adult cat from EP2 provides insight into early shipboard cat behavior and their diet, which appears to have focused on consumption of fish and possibly domestic meat. Cats accompanied sailors on ships where they were relied on to hunt rats and mice that were infesting ships’ holds. Interestingly, based on these isotopic results, the adult cat from EP2 does not seem to have relied heavily on rats as a source of food. These pests were unintentionally introduced to the New World, and cats would have followed, hunting both native and invasive pests.

Los gatos domésticos han convivido junto a comunidades humanas durante miles de años, cazando ratas, ratones y otras plagas y sirviendo como mascotas y fuente de pieles y carne. Los gatos han recibido una atención arqueológica limitada porque su independencia limita el conocimiento directo de las sociedades humanas. Un gato adulto y un gato juvenil recuperados del naufragio 2 de Emanuel Point (EP2) reflejan lo que son, muy probablemente, los primeros gatos en lo que hoy es los Estados Unidos. Los análisis zooarqueológicos de estos y otros gatos arqueológicos en las Américas demuestran que los gatos variaban sustancialmente en tamaño, incluidos algunos comparables a los gatos domésticos modernos y otros que eran mucho más pequeños. Los análisis isotópicos del gato adulto de EP2 proporcionan información sobre el comportamiento y la dieta de los primeros gatos a bordo de barcos, que parecen haberse centrado en el consumo de pescado y posiblemente de carne doméstica. Los gatos acompañaban a los marineros en los barcos, donde se dependía de ellos para cazar ratas y ratones que infestaban las bodegas de los barcos, pero, curiosamente, según estos resultados isotópicos, el gato adulto de EP2 no parece haber dependido en gran medida de las ratas como fuente de alimento. Estas plagas se introdujeron involuntariamente en el Nuevo Mundo, y los gatos las habrían seguido donde cazaban plagas tanto nativas como invasoras.

While the impacts of black (Rattus rattus) and brown (Rattus rattus) rats on human society are well documented-including the spread of disease, broad-scale environmental destruction, and billions spent annually on animal control-little is known about their ecology and behavior in urban areas due to the challenges of studying animals in city environments. We use isotopic and ZooMS analysis of archaeological (1550s-1900 CE) rat remains from eastern North America to provide a large-scale framework for species arrival, interspecific competition, and dietary ecology. Brown rats arrived earlier than expected and rapidly out-competed black rats in coastal urban areas. This replacement happened despite evidence that the two species occupy different trophic positions. Findings include the earliest molecularly confirmed brown rat in the Americas and show a deep ecological structure to how rats exploit human-structured areas, with implications for understanding urban zoonosis, rat management, and ecosystem planning as well as broader themes of rat dispersal, phylogeny, evolutionary ecology, and climate impacts.

Domestic cats were derived from the Near Eastern wildcat (Felis lybica), after which they dispersed with people into Europe. As they did so, it is possible that they interbred with the indigenous population of European wildcats (Felis silvestris). Gene flow between incoming domestic animals and closely related indigenous wild species has been previously demonstrated in other taxa, including pigs, sheep, goats, bees, chickens, and cattle. In the case of cats, a lack of nuclear, genome-wide data, particularly from Near Eastern wildcats, has made it difficult to either detect or quantify this possibility. To address these issues, we generated 75 ancient mitochondrial genomes, 14 ancient nuclear genomes, and 31 modern nuclear genomes from European and Near Eastern wildcats. Our results demonstrate that despite cohabitating for at least 2,000 years on the European mainland and in Britain, most modern domestic cats possessed less than 10% of their ancestry from European wildcats, and ancient European wildcats possessed little to no ancestry from domestic cats. The antiquity and strength of this reproductive isolation between introduced domestic cats and local wildcats was likely the result of behavioral and ecological differences. Intriguingly, this long-lasting reproductive isolation is currently being eroded in parts of the species' distribution as a result of anthropogenic activities.

Three hundred and twenty-two sq km of cultural resource-rich water surround the city of Pensacola, Florida (Figure 1). To date, archaeologists have inventoried more than 50 submerged objects including shipwrecks, abandoned schooners and barges, ballast piles, wharfs and the remnants of a marine railway in this study area. The discovery techniques used to place these vessels in the inventory has varied--several of Pensacola’s abandoned vessels are visible at all times or during periods of low water, local informants have provided the location of a few submerged wrecks, a Norwegian ship lost in 1894 is clearly documented off Santa Rosa Island in the form of a historical photograph, and at least two other submerged shipwrecks are clearly visible in recent aerial photographs and Google Earth. Wrecks located in deep waters or buried in bottom sediments also have been located using traditional methods of remote sensing with side scan sonar and magnetometer. The latter instrument has proven to be the most effective survey tool and promises to be more useful if appropriate survey line spacing is considered in regard to Pensacola’s waters, sedimentation processes, and shipwreck history.

The Emanuel Point Shipwreck helped to persuade the University of West Florida to begin a program of maritime archaeology. Those students ultimately continued the survey of Pensacola Bay, finding another Luna shipwreck near the first one and then, recently, a third sister ship in the fleet. Above the shipwrecks on the Emanuel Point Bluff, remnants of the settlement site have also been found, creating an unparalleled opportunity to study the maritime and terrestrial components of that forgotten chapter and bring its remains to light.