The remains of a 2,000-year-old bobcat with a collar on his neck has been discovered in an Illinois Native American burial site. It was found buried next to the remains of humans, suggesting that the cat was regarded as a well-loved pet, according to Daily Mail.
Zoo archeologists noted that the wild cat's collar was made of bear teeth and pieces of sea shells. First believed to be a puppy, the researchers said that its skull definitely did not belong to a dog. A closer study revealed that it was indeed a bobcat, between four to seven months old.
The burial ground where it was dug from belonged to the Hopewell culture, who were hunters and traders known for their animal artwork, the report said. They were also known to bury their pet dogs.
The remains, now housed at the Illinois State Museum, were first discovered in the 1980s and the bones of the animal have been labeled as "puppy." But decades later, a team of researchers realized something was not right, thus, prompting the new discovery.
"It really looked like it had been buried not because it was a feral accessory for a human, but because it was, in some way, kind of respected on its own," said Angela Perri, the study co-author and a zoo archaeologist from Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, according to Live Science.
The study authors also noted that the bobcat didn't exhibit any trauma or wound on the body to indicate that it had been mistreated or harmed. They believe that the animal may have been orphaned and was tamed by the ancient people.
"This is the closest you can get to finding taming in the archaeological record," Perri said.
The team intends to chemically analyze the bones of the wild cat to learn more about it. However, their study may be delayed by the possible shutdown of the state museum due to state budget cuts, according to Chicago Tribune.
The findings were published in the Midcontinental Journal of Archeology.
