Cats: Are They Commensal Or Domestic?

I came across this article by Bar-Oz et al (2014) in an Archaeology journal which attempts to explain why cats are at times so un-willing to be our pets. Research into early Chinese Neolithic agriculture (6,000–5,000 B.P.) at the site of Quanhucun, Shaanxi Province has created uncertainty regarding cat –human interactions.

The cat remains in question have tentatively been identified as a Felis species, similar to the four small-bodied cat genera and species in the Shaanxi Province region. One explanation put forward is that the cat represents a local wild species, placing the current trajectory of cat domestication in China in question. It is known that felids are obligate carnivores and require a diet of meat; therefore we would expect the carbon isotopic fingerprint of cats to be relative to the carbon source of their diet. However, the isotopic data suggests that the Quanhucun cat’s levels are a result of feeding on foods enriched with carbon from C4 domesticated plants. The Quanhucun cat’s isotope could be indicative of having eaten rodents that fed upon domesticated crops such as millet as found on related newsblog:  

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/17/ancient-cat-bone-research-china-domestic-pet (accessed 11/05/14)

An explanation could be a result of in situ commensalism with humans. Commensal animals benefit from changes in their environment engendered by humans and form a fairly stable, direct or indirect, bond with their human hosts. Commensalism is widespread and represents one of several pathways to domestication. It is true though that the majority of animals in such human-animal interactions are never domesticated, which can be traced through microevolutionary changes and detailed taxonomic identification. 

This observation of aberrant findings in the absence of more detailed taxonomic identification (morphometric or genetic) requires further evaluation through analysis of stable isotopes in large samples of both domestic and wild cats with variable diets in China is needed before these findings can be substantiated. 

At times it feels like cat commensalism (benefiting off our resources at their will) rather than cat domestication (humans having tamed/melded them to our will) is a more accurate representation.