Page 39 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW - ISSUE 13

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 3 9

-Domestication in North Africa

If we look to North Africa, we find a few interesting examples there for our consideration
of domestication [25].

In Wikipedia (01.08.2022)
“Of particular interest here is the Eastern Sahara. The statement that the only three
domesticated animals in Africa were the donkey, the cat and the guinea fowl, which was still
found in reference books until the 1980s, can no longer be upheld today; rather, the Neolithic
domestication process is now much more complex.

However, domestications were sometimes carried out in parallel in several regions of the
world, in which case domestic breeds could often have been mixed later via imports.

Particularly interesting in this context is the case of cattle, which were kept across the
Sahara region in the so-called Bubalus field period between 6000 and 1500 BC, albeit
initially probably as semi-wild animals. Numerous Neolithic tether stones, which prevent
animals from running away, can still be found in the desert today. The southern limit of the
occurrence of wild cattle was apparently the 25th parallel.

Possible domestication of Dog: Dog- or jackal-headed mixed creatures, possibly representing
shamans, already exist in Saharan rock art (hunter period in the Wadi Mathendous of
Fezzan and in the Tadrart Acacus). The oldest evidence so far in Egypt dates back to the 5th

millennium BC (bone finds from the Neolithic settlement of Merimde-Benisalâme, west of
the Nile delta). Since there were no wolves in North Africa, it must have been an import,
possibly from the Near East. It is likely to have been a type of sighthound that was mainly
kept for hunting purposes and later even buried, as is shown by illustrations from the Old

Kingdom depicting so-called tesem, Pharaoh's dogs, such as Tutankhamun used for hunting .

Domestication attempts: They are documented in ancient Egypt in the 12th dynasty for the
Oryx antelope and the Dorkas gazelle, but they were apparently abandoned for unknown

reasons, presumably failed, although the Oryx in particular would have been very suitable
because of its desert suitability (it hardly needs water, as it metabolically produces it itself).”