Camel, Domestication of the

The domestication of the camel, like the horse, seems to have occurred much later than that of sheep, goat, and cattle. The camel is inferior to the horse in warfare and is further disadvantaged by slow reproduction and an intolerance of wet climates. Camels are superior pack animals in arid regions, however, and their usefulness in long-distance trade may be a major reason for the timing of their domestication.

There are two species of camel: the one-humped dromedary, Camelus dromedarius, admirably suited to the hot dry deserts of North Africa and the Near East, and the two-humped Bactrian camel, Camelus bactrianus, better suited to the cold deserts of Central Asia. Both probably evolved from a common Pleistocene ancestor. Camelid bones have been found in Pleistocene deposits in India, western Asia, and North Africa.

As in the case of the horse, it is difficult to establish whether any truly wild camels now exist. All one-humped camels are directly controlled by humans or are feral descendants of domesticated animals, but there may still be genuinely wild two-humped camels in the Gobi Desert. The superb adaptation of both camels to extreme conditions has made them useful to desert peoples with very little further selection.

Evidence of early domestication of the camel is difficult to interpret. Camel dung, hair, and bones, probably of the Bactrian variety, have been found in deposits of ca. 2600 B.C. at Shar-i Sokhta in Iran. Father north in southern Turkmenia, camel bones are found from the fourth millennium b.c. Since the bones of camel do not change at domestication in the manner seen in other species, it is difficult to determine whether these were domestic or merely the residue of camel hunting. Artifacts, such as figurines and reliefs, or the discovery of camel dung at occupation sites, provides surer evidence of domestication than bones alone.

The dromedary appears first to have been domesticated in the southern Arabian Peninsula. Between 3000 and 2500 B.C., it is suggested that coastal peoples there switched from hunting camels to herding them for their milk. The camel subsequently spread to Somalia between 2500 and 1500 B.C., and then northward and across to Egypt in the first millennium b.c. This expansion may have been connected with the growth of the incense trade.

The evidence thus seems to indicate that by the beginning of the second millennium b.c. both species of Old World camel had been domesticated, the Bactrian in eastern Iran, the dromedary in southern Arabia.

Remains comparable with the dromedary are reported from Tell Jemmeh near Gaza in deposits of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries b.c. and later. The quantity increases after 675 B.C., when the Assyrians invaded Egypt. Assyrian inscriptions and representations indicate that both dromedaries and Bactrian camels were in use by this time. Farther east, the Bactrian camel was used for long-distance trade along the Silk Route to China, though the use of dromedaries in the Baghdad region led after a time to the development of hybrids that supplemented the Bactrian in the western parts of Central Asia.

The camel saddle was a critical part of the equation. The early southern Arabian saddle carried the weight behind the hump. Some time before 100 B.C., a revolutionary new type of saddle was developed in northern Arabia. This had a wooden frame surrounding the hump, which enabled the rider to fight while securely mounted above the hump. The invention of the northern Arabian saddle was probably a major factor in the rise of Arab power and influence.

With the Arab expansion, camel usage spread from Egypt and the Sudan across the whole of the Sahara, greatly affecting the society and economy of the region. Here, however, a different type of saddle was invented, located in front of the hump. This was efficient for riding but not for carrying a pack, and the northern Arabian saddle continued to be used for the important trans-Saharan trade. With the new saddle designs and the decay of the roads after the end of the Roman Empire, dromedaries almost entirely supplanted wheeled transport in North Africa and the Near East. They remained the principal method of travel in these regions until the present century.[See also Domestication of Animals; Horse, Domestication of The.]

Bibliography and More Information about Camel, Domestication of the

• F. E. Zeuner, A History of Domesticated Animals (1963).
• Richard W. Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel (1975).
• Hilde Gauthier-Pilters and Anne Innis Dagg, The Camel, Its Evolution, Ecology, Behaviour and Relationship to Man (1981).
• Juliet Clutton-Brock, A Natural History of Domesticated Mammals (1987).
• Simon J. M. Davis, The Archaeology of Animals (1987).

Sheila Hamilton-Dyer