Caravans, camel wrestling and cowrie shells: towards a social zooarchaeology of camel hybridization in anatolia and adjacent eegions
Journal: Anthropozoologica
Year: 2014

Hybrid camels, intentional crosses between dromedaries and bactrian camels, are prized for their robustness and endurance. They were the prime vehicles of short and long distance caravan trade in a large area between Greece and Mongolia until the whole-scale introduction of motorized transport. This paper proposes a model for the zooarchaeological study of camel hybridization as a culture-historical phenomenon based on ethnographic and ethnohistoric observations of camel wrestling. Camel wrestli