"ARRIVAL OF DOMESTICATED CAMELS IN THE SOUTHERN LEVANT"

[Humanist]

Came across a link to the below article on a Facebook group page.

ARRIVAL OF DOMESTICATED CAMELS IN THE SOUTHERN LEVANT (http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/02/2014/arrival-domesticated-camels-southern-levant)

Past Horizons. February 03, 2014


Now Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef and Dr. Lidar Sapir-Hen of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures have used radiocarbon dating to pinpoint the moment when domesticated camels arrived in the southern Levant, pushing it forward from the 12th to the 9th century BCE.

[newtoboard]

Where exactly were cattle domesticated? I had read it was Africa with the exception of the Bactrian camel. But it wouldn't surprise me if it was somewhere in the Gulf region and camels arrived in Africa from there, perhaps with bos indicus cattle as well.

[Humanist]

From the paper itself (https://www.academia.edu/4800043/The_Introduction_of_Domestic_Camels_to_the_Souther n_Levant_Evidence_from_the_Aravah_Valley) (by Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef):


[T]rade between southern Arabia and the Levant was not feasible before the use of camels as pack animals (see, e.g., Jasmin 2006), it could not have commenced before the last third of the 10th century BCE.

[newtoboard]

I guess Camels were domesticated somewhere between those two regions then. Makes sense. I think I read something about a South Iranian origin for camel domestication in addition to the independent South Central Asian one for Bactrian camels. Camels are interesting. They were found as far north as the Urals at one point. I wonder what value they would have up there.