WI: Native Africans Domesticated Elephants

GlobalHumanism

What if native sub-saharan Africans were able to domesticate the African Elephant?

Elephants meet most requirements for domestication, being herbivores, can graze on tree leaves around human settlements and can be tamed to be ridden.

So if the African did in BCE times, what effects would this POD have on farming, warfare, population demographics, urbanization and future European colonization?
 

GeographyDude

Gone Fishin'
More large irrigation projects for starters, and stored military assets.

And I'm assuming you mean the wooly mammoths?
 

ook

GlobalHumanism said:
Elephants meet most requirements for domestication, being herbivores, can graze on tree leaves around human settlements and can be tamed to be ridden.
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as well as being easy to breed, with short pregnancy and needing just few years to reach reproductive age ;)

I would call ASB, nobody ever domesticated any of the extant elephant species.
 

riggerrob

Hannibal used domesticated African forest elephants. AFE were smaller and easier to train than modern, Serengeti (grass land) elephants. Sadly, AFE are extinct.
 
ennobee

ennobee

Elephants are also notoriously difficult to care for. And up to recently the working elephants of Asia were caught and tamed rather then bred and raised. So my guess is that working elephants might do fine in Africa until someone comes along with domesticated donkeys. After that, there might be a few elephants left for ceremonial purposes but the population at large would have switched to donkeys, camels, oxen and horses for all their hauling and riding needs. And by the time the Carthaginians made their expeditions into subsaharan Africa, the locals would probably sell off their remaining elephants to Hannibal without hesitation thinking: "yea, we got you, you Spanish s@cc@r."
 

Dave Howery

ennobee said:
E And up to recently the working elephants of Asia were caught and tamed rather then bred and raised.
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which makes you wonder just how the very first ones were ever tamed. Someone had to go to the effort of catching some young ones and raising them... a lotta work, but someone important must have thought it was worthwhile...
 

eschaton

True domestication of elephants would be very hard, because they're slow to mature, and have few offspring. It takes 10-12 years for females to reach breeding age. They also have 22-month pregnancies, almost always have only one baby, and typically cannot have babies more than once every three years.

Compared to other domesticates, all of this is pretty bad. Pigs, for example, sexually mature at two years, have pregnancies which last 4-5 months, and have an average of 4-6 offspring.

Basically domesticating elephants would be an exercise in patience. You would have a hard enough time ensuring that your domestic population grew (and that you had enough to feed them) before you even began considering the sort of culling needed to selectively breed in more "tame" behavior.
 

GdwnsnHo

Banned
Thesaurus Rex said:
No they're not.
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I'm going to guess that those are a different species to a North African forest elephant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_African_elephant

This would be a HUGE exercise in patience as it has been said, but there are a few circumstances that could pull it off.

As mentioned, the Carthaginians had tamed African Elephants, and they did range that part of N.Africa. Another region was just south of Kush. We could have it so that an incredibly talented Pharaoh, be they Kushite, or Egyptian, or Greek has some imported to the Faiyum, or sets up a colony on the very edge of "Elephant Territory" - they would have the wealth and the money to pull this off without just saying "A dude did it".

The main thing is that Elephants aren't tamed unless there is a value to it, and the resources. Egypt has the grain perhaps - and the masonry blocks to shift, but they are difficult to import (unless we look at the Sudanese Coastline). Where else is there a purpose?

If we see a masonry civilisation emerge in the heart of Africa, they could begin using Elephants to build incredible walls, temples and shrines once they tame them and put them to work. I could see any "Worker Gods" having Elephant features in such a society, but also potentially the image of "Kings" as Elephants could be the symbol of power.

All in all, I'd expect societies with a much more monumental scale of construction, or to fight warfare largely focused around controlling Elephants.

Personally, I push for anyone ever doing a storyline with Egypt or Africa involved prior to the Romans, to remind the ruler NOT to wipe out the North African Elephant. Just doing this could lead to the obvious - Elephant Assisted construction of the Suez/Pharaohs Canal. Humans digging + Elephants moving dirt, rock, and canal facing = Epic Win.

The idea of taming elephants, or the techniques could be transmitted to Africa via the Garamentes trade routes. They may not own Elephants, but if someone with the skills to tame elephants survives disease contact with Sub-saharan africa could well tame elephants, teach the natives, and later have these skills used for more than just warfare.

Side note : Elephant Caravanserai would be AWESOME. Both in cool, and in the size of the buildings!
 
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