This chapter contains spoilers for all series.

It is widely known that before the clans there was the Tribe of Rushing Water, and that before the Tribe of Rushing Water there were The Ancients.

But what of the cats that lived before the time of Half Moon and Jay's Wing?

The information we have to this point about the Ancients is from Rock, Midnight and Jayfeather's time travel to take the place of Jay's Wing when the Ancients decided to leave the lake to form The Tribe of Rushing Water.

Jayfeather's experiences aren't even near old enough; we have to look to the oldest characters in the series, Rock and Midnight.

Midnight claims in The Last Hope that she has known Rock since the first cat put its paw beside water, and adds to it by saying that the sunrise burst the water into flame, and in the reflection was the future of all cats (1). However, there is no detail of exactly how long ago this was.

But we're not here to chit chat about vague facts from the book though: there are numerous clues that might tell us just how long there were cats at the lake.

To start, after Midnight tells of how long she has known Rock, there is a vital line that may not seem that important to the reader, who is looking instead at the story: Scratching her claws against the granite after Rock had spoken, Midnight says that she and Rock fear that they see a final sunset that ends the story.

Ignore the story for now. What is important is the type of rock that the two characters are standing on, Granite.

As was revealed by the Erins (2) that the original clans' territories were based off the New Forest in Hampshire, England, this means that the lake must be reasonably close by. But looking at the lakes in the area, none seem fit to be the place described in the books, but this is okay seeing as the Erins have said that the lake territories are not based off a location like the forest territories.

The geology of the New Forest area however, is underlain by sands and clays, and there is much exposure on the coast as the sun-drown-place is described (3) These features can lead to fresh water springs, a trait that runs true with the Moon Pool and other features described in the novels.

A very large amount of seismic data also exists for the area, proving that granite could indeed be found in the area as it is formed by volcanic or seismic activity over thousands of years.

But how does this all relate to how long The Ancients were at the lake?

Well, as Jayfeather mentions countless times at the Moon Pool, he can feel all the dimples in the rock, supposedly from the ancients however many moons ago.

Suppose that this rock is Granite, as aforementioned. There are many different factors that affect the process of erosion, but as the Moon Pool is sheltered, it is safe to assume that the cats and water are the only causes of weathering to the rock.

According to an experiment on the erosion rates of rocks (5), granite can indeed be eroded by continuous contact with an external force. The cats would be the ones to erode the rock, and any rain would be the force to smooth out the erosion.

As the cats would only visit the Moon Pool every half-moon however, it would take 1000 plus years for the exact footprints of the cats to be worn into the rock, and that's only with the assumption that they would step in the exact same place every single time.

Domestic cats appeared in Europe approximately 1,600 years ago, so it is possible that the Ancients are just younger than that. But who knows? Maybe there were even more groups before the Ancients, so old that they were lost to time.

(1) http://warriors.wikia.com/wiki/Midnight_(Character)

(2) http://warriors.wikia.com/wiki/The_Forest_Territories

(3) http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~imw/New-Forest-Geology-Guide.htm

(4) http://www.phoenixhomeimprovementcenter.com/what-is-granite.html

(5) https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j11_3/j11_3_335-343.pdf

Hope you enjoyed my first chapter on the Cats of Science account! If have any questions on anything in this analysis, don't hesitate to ask!

~Cyclone :)