Did the elephants walk or swim to Tilos?

Missy Bear leaving Tilos

In my last blog, we left you as we were driving northwards across the Alps northwards, leaving Italy.

This was the opposite of Hannibal, who entered Italy with his elephants 2,200 years ago, heading southwards towards his Roman enemy, during the second Punic war.  His thirty plus elephants were probably small North-African species, and he is thought to have used trainers (mahouts) from the Indian sub-continent to keep the beastunder control. Hannibal might have got hold of some western-Asian elephants, instead, but this Syrian species was probably extinct in Syria and Asia Minor, by about 1,000 BC.  

As for elephants native to south-eastern Europe, the last species of these became extinct around 1,500 BC. They inhabited the islands of the southern and eastern Aegean Sea from about 45,000 years ago.

Artist's impression of elephants on Tilos (Nysiros volcano in the background)

And they didn’t arrive on the islands by boat. Not even Noah was around then (I think).   

The crews of Missy Bear and Money Penny had landed on one of these islands; Tilos, south of Kos and just off the Turkish coast. We normally sail around here in the autumn, at the end of the tourist season in October, when the attractions (few as there are) have closed up. But, it was now mid-September, and we had finally managed to gain access to the museum dedicated to these last European elephants. We were excited when we arrived that the doors were unlocked. And Alix and Judith were equally excited to talk to the young, local, and very good-looking museum curator.

During the many ice-ages in pre-history, the build-up of the polar ice caps reduced the available liquid water, and the sea-levels dropped. This reduced significantly the distances between mainland of Asia Minor and the islands. Therefore, several animals that are good-swimmers, were able to cross these narrower straits. Elephants, hippopotamuses and deer are all proven capable swimmers, and easily colonised offshore islands such as Tilos. Smaller mammals, on the other hand, could have reached here on driftwood that followed sea currents.

Pale grey areas show much-increased land above sea-level, during the last major ice-age

Deer lived in Tilos until about 140,000 years-ago, when they became extinct due to eruption of the volcano on Nysiros, the island just to the north of Tilos.

The ultimate westward migration of Asian elephants was concurrent with a later ice-age, around 45,000 years ago. These elephants also colonised Sicily, Cyprus and Crete. As sea-levels rose as the ice-caps retreated, these populations became isolated, and evolved in different ways that best fitted their local island environment. The Tilos elephants are considerably smaller in size to other island populations (about 1.8m in height), and have been assigned as a new species Elephas tiliensis.

The precise cause of their extinction is not fully agreed. It may have been environmental degradation due to climate change; or the massive eruption of Santorini (causing toxification of food, water and air); or hunting by man; or a combination of these factors.

Reconstruction of a dwarf elephant excavated from Tilos

What is certain is that the mammal bones have been excavated from below more than eight meters of sediment/volcanic material. 15,000 bones have been collected around the museum, including from a cave where the elephants may have sought shelter from an eruption. These bones correspond to about 45 of these dwarf elephants. (The deer bones were found in much deeper strata to the elephant bones.)

The Tilos elephants were the last to live in Europe, and were extinct way before Hannibal’s time.

And, if anyone asks you if they swam or walked to Tilos, the answer, as you now know, is “both”!