African wildcats rodents early farming settlements domestication

Rodents may have drawn wildcats to the first farming settlements

Cat domestication probably began when rodents gathered around early farms and attracted African wildcats. Farmers benefited because the cats killed pests, while the cats gained an easy source of food. Evidence of this relationship on Cyprus dates to about 7500–7200 BCE.

Ancient Egyptians used iron from meteorites thousands of years before the Iron Age

≈3200 BC

Nine iron-and-nickel beads found in Egyptian graves date to about 3200 BC, thousands of years before the Iron Age. The metal probably came from meteorites and was shaped by repeated heating and hammering. People could work iron long before they learned to make it from ore on a large scale.

Averaging many opinions does not remove a shared bias

Combining many people's estimates can cancel random mistakes. But if most people make the same kind of mistake in the same direction, averaging their answers keeps that shared bias.

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African wildcats rodents early farming settlements domestication

Rodents may have drawn wildcats to the first farming settlements

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