North American wild camels
Wild camels first originated in North America. Before the last Ice Age, they spread from North America to East Asia. From East Asia, camels reached Central Asia and Iran and Arabia.
What about horses?
How about donkeys?
Evolution of mammals
Other camels moved south to South America, where they became llamas and vicunas and alpacas. Then camels became extinct in North America, maybe during the Ice Age. But they survived in Asia and Africa.
What are llamas?
All our South America articles
Central Asian tame camels
People in Central Asia were the first people to domesticate (tame) camels. They tamed camels long after they learned to tame cows and pigs, maybe about the same time as horses (about 3000 BC). Like horses, camels are not as tame and stupid as cows and sheep are.
Central Asia articles
Islamic Empire articles
By the time of the Islamic Empire, there were almost no wild camels (and there still aren’t), but people used tame camels all across Africa and Asia, from China to North Africa.
Camels cross the desert
Camels can travel long distances across the desert without needing water, so they were very useful in the Gobi Desert in Asia and in the Sahara Desert in Africa.
Trade with Chad
And with Mali
More about the Silk Road
History of camels: the pack saddle
But it took a long time to figure out a good pack saddle for camels, so they could carry heavy loads. Because of not having good pack saddles, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans used donkeys more than camels even in the desert. (For instance, when Jesus entered Jerusalem, he rode on a donkey).
But around the beginning of the Islamic empire, maybe about 500 AD, somebody in West Asia invented a good pack saddle for camels. After that, people began to use camels as pack animals more and more.
African camel caravans
In Africa, beginning around 1000 AD, camels made it much easier to cross the Sahara desert, so people could trade between West Africa and North Africa. This started great trade routes which traders still use today.
What is the Sahara Desert?
Silk Road camel caravans
Around the same time, people in India also began to use camels more, along with the Islamic invasions of India.
And people in China also began to use camel saddles. This statuette (small statue) of a man riding a camel is from T’ang Dynasty China, about 800-900 AD.
Did you find out what you wanted to know about the history of camels? Let us know in the comments!
More about llamas, which are related to camels
Bibliography and further reading about camels:
Camels, by John Wexo (1999). Easy reading.
The Camel and the Wheel, by Richard Bulliet (1975). Bulliet lays out some reasons why camels became more popular around the time that the Islamic Empire was strongest – mainly the invention of a better camel saddle.