Camel domestication
Domesticación del camello
- Date
- c. 3000 BCE · confidence low
- Place
- Southern Arabian Peninsula (dromedary) and Central Asia (Bactrian camel)
- Credited to
- Peoples of southern Arabia and Turkestan
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The dromedary was domesticated in south-east Arabia and the Bactrian camel in Central Asia: animals able to cross deserts carrying 150 kg without drinking for days.
The date is highly disputed: firm archaeozoological evidence of the domestic dromedary in the Levant does not appear until c. 900 BCE, though there are considerably earlier signs in Arabia.
What it led to
- The opening of the incense caravan routes and, later, of the Silk Road
- Trade connections between empires previously separated by impassable deserts
- The rise of oasis cities and Arab pastoral nomadism
- The military advantage of camel cavalry in the desert
Built on
- Domestication of pack animals
- Skin waterskin
Made possible
- Incense routec. 500 BCE
- Opening of the Silk Roadc. 130 BCE
- Camel riding saddle (North Arabian saddle)c. century I a.C.
- Sijilmasa and the trans-Saharan gold and salt tradec. 800
- Long-distance trade caravan
- North Arabian camel saddle