There is typically a personal interest inspiring every researcher. Mine began as a student deeply fascinated by science, literature, ancient history, and death. Not the morbid, life-ending components of death, but the intricacy of the biological; the depth in literary works; and the way that we can use the remains of the dead to tell their stories when they no longer have a voice. Anthropology, I learned, could be used to answer deep foundational questions; what it is to be human and what it means to have a human experience. Past human companionship with animals is one of these foundational narratives and one I have diligently pursued in my academic life.

At the risk of sounding incredibly clichéd, I have always been intrigued by aspects of cats. From an interest in behavior that manifested in reading ‘cat psychology’ books as a teenager, to my near-encyclopedic knowledge of cat breeds by age ten. Human-cat relationships have always been integral to my human experience. I, like many other individuals who would consider themselves ‘cat people’, have an intense emotional relationship with my cat. She is a therapy animal and a warm fluffy writing partner on a cold evening. People with dogs will attest to comparably intense relationships and we know much about the origins of dog domestication. I, like many other individuals, also assumed that there would be an abundance of scholarly information about our felid companions. Or at least, that there were sufficient data to scratch the itch of curiosity. However, as I discovered, curiosity may have killed the cat, but it did not provide us with the cat story.

There are so many economic ties between cats and people, personal stories, gendered stories, that it seemed a manageable mouthful. How could there not be a plethora of archaeological information to go along with the power-house that is the 21st-century obsession with the feline. Through the course of my studies, dipping my toes into the waters of scientific reports, I realized that cats have been fundamentally under-studied. The more articles and reports I perused, the more I came to see that not only was there a lack of information, but this could be a topic that would connect with people. It would challenge me, but in doing so, I could create something tangible, a contribution to the human-animal story. Indeed, I could have the opportunity to actually be impactful with my research. How could I not rise to the challenge?