Today I am leaving for Vienna and the forthcoming “Camels in Asia and North Africa
Interdisciplinary workshop” to be held Tuesday & Wednesday 5-6 October, 2010 at the
Austrian Academy of Sciences, AAS, Dr.-Ignaz-Seipel-Platz 2, 1010 Vienna. If you have an interest in any aspect of camels and are near Vienna, Austria, you might want to join in.

Here are the details, also available in pdf from the website.

This workshop aims at a comprehensive discussion on Old World camels (Dromedary and Bactrian camel) including the following topics:
• Origin and domestication
• Conservation of the wild Bactrian camel
• Veterinary folk medicine
• Socio-economic significance: Breeding, caring, trading
• Art: Petroglyphs, poetry and music
• History and Symbolism of camels in Asia and Austria
These issues will be addressed by scholars from the natural sciences as well as from the social sciences and humanities

Time Schedule
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
08:15 – 09:00 Registration
09:00 – 09:30 Welcome & Introduction
09:30 – 10:00 Keynote talk
10:00 – 11:00 1st Session: Dromedaries and Bactrians: Origin & Domestication of
Old World Camels
11:00 – 11:30 Coffee break
11:30 – 13:00 2nd Session: Old World Camels – History & Ancestry
13:00 – 14:30 Lunch Break
14:30 – 16:00 3rd Session: Dromedaries in Asia and North Africa – Meanings & Practices
16:00 – 16:30 Coffee break
16:30 – 18:00 4th Session: Bactrian Camels in Asia – Conservation & Genetics
18:00 Reception & Poster Session

Time Schedule
Wednesday, Oct. 6th, 2010
08:30 – 09:00 Registration
09:00 – 10:45 5th Session: Dromedaries in the Arabian Peninsula – Evolutionary History
10:45 – 11:15 Coffee break
11:15 – 12:45 6th Session: Bactrian Camels in Asia – Symbolism & Genetics
12:45 – 14:00 Lunch Break
14:00 – 15:30 7th Session: Dromedaries – Economics & Logistics
15:30 – 16:00 Coffee break
16:00 – 17:30 8th Session: Dromedaries – In & Out
17:30 Closing Remarks

Workshop Program Details:
Welcome: Helmut Denk (President of the Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Keynote: The Camel as a Boundary Object? Encounters Between Different Knowledge
Cultures: Ulrike Felt (Department of Social Studies of Science, University of Vienna)
Introduction: Eva-Maria Knoll (Institute for Social Anthropology, AAS)
1st Session: Dromedaries and Bactrians: Origin & Domestication of Old World Camels
• Genetic Origin and Domestication of Old World Camels
Pamela Burger, Pauline Charruau (Institute of Population Genetics, Vetmeduni Vienna)
• Camels of Arabia and Camels of Turan: Two Distinctive Pathways to Domestication
and Two Different Types of Impact
Maurizio Tosi (Institute of Archaeology, University of Bologna)
• Ancient Distribution and Potential Centres of Domestication of the Old World Camels
Hans-Peter Uerpmann (Institute of Pre- and Protohistory and Mediaeval Archaeology,
University of Tübingen)

2nd Session: Camels in Asia – History & Ancestry
• The Meeting Between the Bactrian Camel and the Dromedary Camel in Central Asia
Bernard Faye, Gaukhar Konuspayeva (CIRAD-ES, Montpellier)
• Who Came First in the Suleiman Mountain Region – Dromedary or Bactrian?
A. Raziq Kakar (Society of Animal, Veterinary and Environmental Scientists, SAVES,
Pakistan)
• Chinese References to Camels in Africa and the Near East (Tang to mid-Ming)
Roderich Ptak (Institute of Sinology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich)
• Simulations of Population Ancestry of the Two-humped Camel (Camelus bactrianus)
Alexandra Trinks (Palaeogenetics Group, Institute for Anthropology, University of Mainz)

3rd Session: Dromedaries in Arabia and North Africa – Meanings & Practices
• Breeding and Riding Camels in Arabia: A Cultural History
Walter Dostal (Institute for Social Anthropology, AAS)
• Camels in South-western Arabia: Ethnographic Observations from the 1980s
Andre Gingrich (Institute for Social Anthropology, AAS)
• Between Myth and Reality: Camel-specific Terminology in Arabic
Stephan Procházka, Veronika Ritt – Benmimoun (Department of Near Eastern Studies,
University of Vienna)
• The Saharan Dromedary as a Sign – A Semiotic Analysis
Anja Fischer (Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Vienna)

4th Session: Bactrian Camels in Asia – Conservation & Genetics
• Conservation Management of the Wild Bactrian Camel in Mongolia
Adiya Yadamsuren, Enkhbileg Dulamtseren (Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Wild
Camel Protection Foundation, Ulaan Baatar)
• Status of the critically endangered wild Bactrian camel in China
John Hare (Wild Camel Protection Foundation, UK), Yuan Lei (Lop Nur National Nature
Reserve, Xinjang)
• Habitat Use and Movement Pattern of Wild Bactrian Camels in Mongolia
Petra Kaczensky, Chris Walzer (Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, Vetmeduni
Vienna)
• The Detection of Hybridization Between Wild and Domestic Bactrian Camels
Katja Silbermayr (Institute of Animal Breeding and Genetic, Vetmeduni Vienna)

5th Session: Dromedaries in the Arabian Peninsula – (Evolutionary) History
• Camels in the Archaeological Record of Ancient Mesopotamia
Cornelia Becker (Institute for Pre-historic Archaeology, Freie Universität Berlin)
• Palaeogenetic Analysis of Animal Domestication in South West Asia
Eva-Maria Geigl (Institute of Epigenomics and Paleogenomics, Institute Jacques
Monod, CNRS, Paris)
• Evolutionary History of Indigenous Arabian Peninsula Camel (Camelus dromedarius)
Populations
Faisal Almathen (Institute of Population and Conservation Genetics, University of
Nottingham)
• Archaeozoology of Camels in South-eastern Arabia
Margarete Uerpmann (Institute of Pre- and Protohistory and Mediaeval Archaeology,
University of Tübingen)
• Camel tombs in Al-Fau, Saudi Arabia
Said F. Al-Said (College of Tourism and Archaeology, King Saud University, Riyadh)

6th Session: Bactrian Camels in Asia – Symbolism & Genetics
• Genetics of Chinese Bactrian Camels
Han Jianlin (Gansu Agricultural University, Gansu)
• The camel in the Pre-Modern Mongol Sources
Lkhamsuren Munkh-Erdene (Institute for Social Anthropology, AAS)
• The Tears of the Camel: Reflection on Depictions and Descriptions of the Camel in
Mongolian Culture
Maria-Katharina Lang (Institute for Social Anthropology, AAS)
• The Camel and its Symbolism in the Daily Life of the Mongols with Focus to their
Folk Songs
Otgonbayar Chuluunbaatar (Institute for Folk Music Research and Ethnomusicology,
University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna)

7th Session: Dromedaries – Economics & Logistics
• Caravans from South Arabia: Roads and Organization
Johann Heiss (Institute for Social Anthropology, AAS)
• Economic Significance and Traditional Management of Dromedaries in Syria
Darem Tabbaa (SPANA, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Al Baath University, Hama)
• Camel Urine in the Arab Heritage (Folk Medicine)
Abdulsalam A Bakhsh (Department of Clinical Studies, College of Veterinary Medicine
and Animal Resources, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa)
• Camel-Trekking: The ‚Authentic‘ Tourist Experience in the Sahara
Ines Kohl (Institute for Social Anthropology, AAS)

8th Session: Dromedaries – In & Out
• What Camels Eat: A Study in Arabic Ethnobotany
Daniel Martin Varisco (Department of Anthropology, Hofstra University, Hempstead,
New York)
• Bacterial Community of the Dromedary Camel (Camelus dromedarius) Rumen
Rafat Al Jassim (School of Animal Studies, University of Queensland)
• The Informal Camel Milk Marketing Sector in Kenya and Somalia
Mario Younan (Kenyan Agricultural Research Institute – KARI, Nairobi)
• Issues Related to Camel Racing and Prohibiting Substances
Kelly Willson (Department of the President’s Affairs, The Management of Scientific
Centres and Presidential Camels, United Arabian Emirates)
• Closing Remarks
Pamela Burger & Eva-Maria Knoll