Given that elephants are not a typical component of the European fauna, the discovery of an elephant’s foot bone amidst the debris of an Iron Age excavation in Spain immediately signaled its potential significance to archaeologists.
Considering the bone’s antiquity and its geographical provenance, this finding may represent the inaugural physical testament to the renowned ‘war elephants’ deployed by the Carthaginian general Hannibal.
Illustrations and narratives chronicling these elephants’ impact on the battlefield have been preserved through the ages within artistic and literary traditions. Nevertheless, until this juncture, no skeletal corroboration of these magnificent creatures had been unearthed.
“The strategic utilization of elephants as formidable ‘war machines’ on European territory during the Punic Wars left an indelible imprint on Western artistic, literary, and cultural spheres – a heritage transmitted through classical accounts to subsequent chroniclers,” as elucidated by the research collective, spearheaded by University of Cordoba archaeologist Rafael Martínez Sánchez, in their published findings.
Historical accounts suggest Hannibal directed his forces from Carthage, an ancient North African metropolis, across the southern Alps in the year 218 BCE, with his contingent reportedly including thirty-seven elephants.
In his capacity as a commanding general, Hannibal orchestrated the Carthaginians’ campaigns against the Roman Republic throughout the trio of Punic Wars, a series of conflicts that transpired between 264 and 146 BCE. Archaeologists posit that the locale where the elephantine bone was discovered, identified as Colina de los Quemados, might have once served as a Punic engagement zone.
“From an archaeological standpoint, the destruction stratum substantiated at Colina de los Quemados aligns congruently with a developing pattern of events intrinsically linked to the Second Punic War,” the investigators duly report.
Artillery munitions, coinage, and ceramic fragments retrieved during excavations conducted in 2020 provided supplementary substantiation of the site’s martial past.
Regarding the elephant bone itself, radiocarbon dating unequivocally established that it originated from an animal that lived between the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BCE, precisely coinciding with the temporal framework of the Second Punic War.
Through comparative analysis of the 10-centimeter (4-inch) carpal bone against those of extant elephants and also steppe mammoths, the researchers affirmed its elephantine origin. However, the specimen’s advanced state of degradation precluded species-level determination, an endeavor that would necessitate preserved collagen containing proteinaceous material or genetic material.
Alternative hypotheses exist regarding the elephant’s presence in such an unusual setting. Rome’s Numidian confederates might have dispatched African elephants during the 2nd century BCE as part of their expansionist endeavors or during the civil conflicts instigated by Caesar. Alternatively, they could have been integrated into gladiatorial spectacles during the nascent Roman Imperial era.
Nevertheless, these three alternative scenarios do not precisely correlate with the bone’s established age.
“The contextual association of this modest anatomical fragment with the Second Punic War confers upon the discovery an exceptional degree of importance, underscoring the site’s pivotal role in prospective archaeological investigations,” the research cohort concludes.
“Although [the bone] may not represent one of the legendary specimens Hannibal transported across the Alps, it has the potential to signify the inaugural known artifact—so ardently pursued by European scholars during the Modern Age—pertaining to the animals employed in the Punic-Roman conflicts for dominion over the Mediterranean basin.”
