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Hunters stalked giant camels as tall as some modern-day elephants in the Syrian desert tens of thousands of years ago and archaeologists behind the find are wondering where the camels came from and what caused them to die off.

The enormous beasts existed about 100,000 years ago and more of the bones, first discovered last year, have been found this year in the sands about 150 miles north of the capital, Damascus.

The animal, branded the "Syrian Camel" by its Swiss and Syrian discoverers, stood between three and four yards high - about twice the size of latter-day camels and the height at the shoulder of many African elephants.

Continued at "Scientists find more bones of big camels"

Original blog entry "Remains of giant 100,000-year-old camel discovered in Syria":

Damascus, Syria, October 6 2006 (Reuters) - Swiss researchers have discovered the 100,000-year-old remains of a previously unknown giant camel species in central Syria.

'This is a big discovery, a revolution in science,'. Professor Jean-Marie Le Tensorer of the University of Basel told Reuters. 'It was not known that the dromedary was present in the Middle East more than 10,000 years ago.'

'Can you imagine? The camel's shoulders stood three metres (yards) high and it was around four metres tall, as big as a giraffe or an elephant. Nobody knew that such a species had existed.'

A group of humans apparently killed the camel while it was drinking from a spring, said Tensorer, adding that 100,000-year-old human remains were discovered nearby...

...The human bones were transported to Switzerland, where they underwent anthropological analysis...

..."The bone is that of a homo sapiens, or modern man, but the tooth is extremely archaic, similar to that of a Neanderthal. We don't know yet what it is exactly." said Tensorer. [Neandertal]

Continued at: Remains of giant camel discovered in Syria
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Also reported by SANA (Syrian Arab News Agency): "Huge Camel Lived 100,000 Years Before in the Syrian Desert"

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