CAMEL. From the order Artiodactyla and the family Camelidae (even-toed ungulates). In the family there are six living species with two in the Old World: the dromedary (or one-humped camel: C. dromedarius) and the bactrian (or two-humped camel: C. bactrianus). (For distinctive zoological characteristics, see Clutton-Brock 1981: 121–23.) The family is generally considered to have originated in North America but migrated to Asia by the end of the Pliocene, ca. 2 million B.P., since the earliest recovered fossils from the Siwalik Deposits in India belong to this period (for recent summaries, see Howell et al. 1969; Grigson 1983). It is difficult to determine which modern species inhabited SW Asia or what the early Holocene range and distribution might have been, but for the sake of practicality, most authors have suggested that the dromedary was the species characteristic of SW Asia (Arabian peninsula) as opposed to the Inner Asian range of the bactrian (see Compagnoni and Tosi 1978 for suggested early Holocene ranges). Human association with camel remains in the Levant goes back to the Lower Paleolithic based on sparse finds at Ubeidiya in the Dead Sea area (1 million B.P.) and the Acheulean at Latamne, Syria (ca. 250,000 B.P.). Camel remains are more numerous at selected Middle Paleolithic sites such as Doura Cave in Syria (Takai 1974: 170) and Azraq in E Jordan (Clutton-Brock 1970). (For a summary of Paleolithic finds in general, see Grigson 1983: 312.) Later remains have been reported from a Pre-Pottery Neolithic B context at Ain al Assad in Azraq (Kohler 1984: 201), and from the Pottery Neolithic at Shar-ha-Golan (Stekelis 1951: 16). At no site, however, are the remains particularly numerous or widespread enough to suggest that camels were ever a dietary staple in early human context in the Near East (for overall treatments, see Ripinsky 1975; Zarins 1982). (For rock art depictions from the 7th–5th millennia B.C., showing speared camels from SW Arabia, see Anati 1968: 110 and fig. 74; Anati 1974: 234 and fig. 243; Zarins, Murad, and al-Yish 1981: pls. 36B, 34E, 35F, 11A.) By the advent of the Bronze Age, ca. 3000 B.C., wild camels seem to have disappeared or to have been driven out of their natural habitat into the more inhospitable reaches of the Arabian peninsula and our understanding of their behavior patterns and ecological preference remains unclear (Grigson 1983: 313).

Biblical references to camels are still considered controversial, especially in the Genesis passages.

. . .

Based on this observed pattern it appears that domesticated camels arrived en masse in N Arabia and the S Levant only by the latter part of the 2d millennium B.C. Essentially, this confirms the biblical evidence outlined above in Table 1. However, the problem of the earlier Genesis accounts is unresolved. Third-millennium B.C. camel remains from the S Levant are very rare. From Arad in an EB I context (ca. 2900 B.C.), a few bones have been found (Lernau 1978: 87); and from Bir Resisim in the N Negev in an EB IV context (ca. 1900 B.C.), several fragments have been reported (Hakker-Orion 1984: 209). It is unlikely that in both of these cases the remains represent domestic camels. Nonetheless, if we hold that the patriarchal stories are essentially historical in outlook, we would not be totally amiss in suggesting that domestic camels may have been known to the inhabitants of Syria-Palestine as early as the turn of the 3d millennium B.C. Conclusions concerning the utilization of the camel within the Arabian peninsula are summarized in Table 2.

. . .