  AT 2018cow was the nearest and best studied example of a new breed of
extra-galactic, luminous and rapidly-evolving transient. Both the progenitor
systems and explosion mechanisms of these rapid transients remain a mystery -
the energetics, spectral signatures, and timescales make them challenging to
interpret in established classes of supernovae and tidal disruption events. The
rich, multi-wavelength data-set of AT 2018cow has still left several
interpretations viable to explain the nature of this event. In this paper we
analyse integral-field spectroscopic data of the host galaxy, CGCG 137-068, to
compare environmental constraints with leading progenitor models. We find the
explosion site of AT 2018cow to be very typical of core-collapse supernovae
(known to form from stars with MZAMS ~8-25M), and infer a young stellar
population age at the explosion site of few times 10Myr, at slightly sub-solar
metallicity. When comparing to expectations for exotic intermediate-mass black
hole (IMBH) tidal disruption events,we find no evidence for a potential host
system of the IMBH. In particular, there are no abrupt changes in metallicity
or kinematics in the vicinity of the explosion site, arguing against the
presence of a distinct host system. The proximity of AT 2018cow to strong
star-formation in the host galaxy makes us favour a massive stellar progenitor
for this event.
