Wild or Domestic? Biometric Variation in the Cat Felis silvestris Schreber

T.P. O'Connor

doi:10.1002/oa.913

Wild or Domestic? Biometric Variation in the Cat Felis silvestris Schreber

T.P. O'Connor

Archaeology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Investigation of modern biometric data indicates that it may be possible to distinguish wildcats from house cats in many instances. Applying the log-ratio (log-difference) technique to archaeological samples from medieval northern Europe, and to mixed samples of wildcats and house cats, shows that the differentiation may not always be clear, and the possibility that some samples include hybrids is discussed. The technique is applied to samples from the Orkney Islands to demonstrate that single wildcat specimens can be identified in small samples. Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	581-595
Number of pages	14
Journal	International Journal of Osteoarchaeology
Volume	17
Issue number	6
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/oa.913
Publication status	Published - 2007

Bibliographical note

Keywords

wildcat
domestic cat
Felis silvestris
size-index scaling
medieval Europe
CONSERVATION
LYBICA

Access to Document

10.1002/oa.913

OConnor_Cats-IJOA-submitted.pdf

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/oa.913

Cite this

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title = "Wild or Domestic? Biometric Variation in the Cat Felis silvestris Schreber",

abstract = "Investigation of modern biometric data indicates that it may be possible to distinguish wildcats from house cats in many instances. Applying the log-ratio (log-difference) technique to archaeological samples from medieval northern Europe, and to mixed samples of wildcats and house cats, shows that the differentiation may not always be clear, and the possibility that some samples include hybrids is discussed. The technique is applied to samples from the Orkney Islands to demonstrate that single wildcat specimens can be identified in small samples. Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.",

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KW - domestic cat

KW - Felis silvestris

KW - size-index scaling

KW - medieval Europe

KW - CONSERVATION

KW - LYBICA

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