Archaeologists in Spain have uncovered an elephant bone from 2,200 years ago, and they believe it belonged to an animal that served as a “war machine” in an army sent to invade the Roman Republic.After discovering the ankle bone at the Colina de los Quemados archaeological site in the city of Cordoba in southern Spain, researchers used radiocarbon dating to ascertain that it belonged to an elephant that lived around the early fourth to late third century BC, according to a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.Around this time, the city-state of Carthage, in what is now Tunisia, was battling with the Roman Republic for supremacy in the Mediterranean.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe Carthaginians were known to use elephants as “war machines” in their armies, according to the research, and classical accounts suggest the famed commander Hannibal had driven a troop of 37 elephants through modern day Spain and France, ultimately attempting to invade Italy by crossing the Alps during the Second Punic War, which took place from 218 to 201 BC.A view of the archaeological site where the bone was found in southern Spain. – Agustín Lopez JimenezThe incredible sight of Hannibal’s elephants left its mark on the historical record, but no direct physical evidence of their presence in Western Europe had previously been discovered.In addition to the radiocarbon dating, which roughly aligns with the timeline of the Second Punic War, researchers said clues to their Hannibal theory also include 12 spherical stone balls used in artillery that they found alongside the bone, which “probably points to a military context.”Although they acknowledge that the discovery of one bone in isolation does not indicate that the entire animal was at this site, as the bone could have been taken there as a curio or a souvenir, “historical and archaeological record suggest that its association with the events of the Second Punic War, whether direct or indirect, provides the most plausible explanation,” the researchers noted in the study. They cited the presence of projectiles and arrowheads, which may have been left behind following a violent episode.Prestigious and ‘psychological’ weaponsBattle elephants at this time were “prestige weapons but also psychological weapons,” according to Fernando Quesada-Sanz, the study’s lead author and an archaeologist at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe animals were “very impressive and frightening for troops not accustomed to facing them,” he told CNN in a statement Thursday.“They were also particularly useful against cavalry and to disorder enemy infantry lines,” Quesada-Sanz added. “They were even used as spearheads to lead attacks against the palisades of temporary enemy fortifications such as campaign camps.”More in WorldQuesada-Sanz said that “this is the first time, as far as we know, that the actual remains of one of the elephants in the Carthaginia …
