The main objective of the project is to present the synthetic approach to the history of the appearance of domestic cat in Central Europe, its further spread across this region, followed by genetic adaptations. This project’s aim is to fill the gaps in the current knowledge on the cat prehistory and history in Europe, i.e., between its domestication in the Near East, early appearance in Poland during Neolithic, the much later establishment of housecat population during the Roman Period and the rapid increase of fully-domesticated cat populations in the late medieval settlement centres. Presented interdisciplinary study will join complementary methods: archaeozoology with paleogenetics and radiocarbon dating. Such approach applied to numerous archaeological material of domestic cat from Central Europe will enable reconstruction of history of this species in the region, outside the Mediterranean. Domestication of plants and animals played a key role in development of human civilization. During the Neolithic Revolution most of the animals were domesticated with a specific purpose. In case of the cat, it probably happened through commensal relationship with the first farmers. Despite the fact that cat is one of the most popular domestic pets nowadays, the knowledge about history of its domestication is limited. The recent genetic data presents the ancestors and the region of domestication, but less is known about the later dispersal in the Mediterranean region, and almost nothing about the dispersal beyond this region. Addressing the issues of the history of domestic cats is still a vivid scientific topic in the history of domesticated animals and humans–animal’s interactions. Multidisciplinary approach planed in this project creates a wide research perspective. The project main research hypotheses are: 1. The cat migration to Central Europe (was it the already domesticated animal or a still-wild ancestor) happened in several successive migration phases. The migrations were caused by different cultural events (such as: spread of early famers during the Neolithic; expansion of the Roman Empire; intensification of an over-sea trade during medieval period; urbanization). Each migration wave could deliver cats of different genetic background and from different source populations. 2. Some earlier cat lineages (especially the Neolithic one) could disappear over time and have been replaced by the others. 3. Domestic cats experienced hybridization with the native European wildcat. This process, considered as a negative anthropogenic impact on the natural environment, might have started even millennia ago. 4. During domestication process there were significant changes in frequencies of alleles associated with phenotypic traits like coat colour, social behaviour (fear of humans, aggressiveness) as well as with metabolic adaptive processes (digestion of no-meat food). Archaeozoology faces serious problems with the distinguishing between domestic cats and wildcats, the skeletal remains of both taxa are in many cases similar in terms of classical morphometric approach. Ancient DNA analysis enabled distinction between the Near Eastern lineages (including the domestic cat, Felis silvestris catus, and its ancestor, the Near Eastern wildcat, F. s. lybica) and the native wild taxon in Central Europe, the European wildcat (F. s. silvestris). We will use high throughput sequencing and target enrichment of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA to taxonomically identify bone remains, assess level of admixture between two taxa, perform phylogenetic and phylogeographic analyses and try to reconstruct migration events and routes. Moreover, with use of standard archaeozoological methods only, we are not able to identify phenotypic features and adaptations which played an important role in cat domestication and establishing of various cultural cat-human relationships. The research team of this project have great experience in paleogenomics, archaeology and archaeozoology. The project will be conducted in international collaboration with archaeozoologists from various European scientific institutions. The main beneficent of the results of this project will be archaeology, archaeozoology and paleogenetics. The project also offers advantages for palaeontology, as it will bring a new data to chronology and biogeography of two felid taxa, including the European wildcat.