Spanish Version

Some history

The existence of extinct "elephants"¹ inside of Center and South American territory is a fact that one knows, at least for the Europeans, from the time of the conquest, when they were discovered in several sites, mainly of South America, the first fossil remains, principally at the hands of Jesuits priests and later on military and naturalists still interested in the natural history of this "new" to discover and to understand continent. 
They were attributed, in a first moment, and even for doctors of the time, to remains of giants buried by the universal flood, common history shared by remains of other extinct pleistocenic megamammals, mainly of the terrestrial sloths² group of the big ones. Some ideas that, for those times fit perfectly with the contents of the biblical writings ³and mainly, with the ignorance of the natural history.

A simplified history of the group of the elephants and their migrations

According to the data that it contributes the fossil record, the history of the group of the proboscideans begins in the north of Africa during the early Eocene⁴, since about 50 M.a. with relatively small animals that didn't possess the " trumpets " that we know nowadays.
Progressively, and possibly because of dietary habits and mechanical impediments, there was a progressive migration of the nasal openings in the skull toward a more dorsal position, together with the development and appearance of the proboscis (trumpet) that is one of the main characteristics of this animals. In some lineages also took place a progressive increase of the lenght and robustness of the second incisive superior, that later would give origin to the defenses in some groups, as which occupies us⁵.
Together with a progressive increase of size, was being diversified in African territory and being dispersed toward Asia, Europe and North America toward principles of the Miocene epoch, since about 20 M.a., being the number of species and individuals, a lot of bigger what we know nowadays toward that time of the medium Cenozoic.
One of the well-known and particular better fossil proboscideans, the genus Mammuthus, particularly successful since it presented a series of adaptations to the cold climates of pleistocenic times⁶, among those that included a thick hair layer. Of an extensive distribution for all Eurasia, North of Africa, North America and part of Central America, besides a temporary permanency  until recent times.
Some theories postulate their extinction at the hands of human hunters because of overexploitation.
One of you line them ancestral give origin to the at the extant and well-known as African elephant (Loxodonta africana, see picture) and another lines, much more still derived, that is to say with more evolutionary changes in their to have,  gave origin at the extant anmd know as Indian or Asian elephant (Elephas maximus, see picture), together with with Mamuts and Mastodons, all these last forms of much wider dispersion during the Miocene⁷ that the Africans. 
Some in the forms that were dispersed from Africa conserved the same genus, as Mammuthus that in the rest of the continents that they reached, given their adaptative success, they reached flocks of thousands of individuals  that pastured for the pleistocenics plains of Eurasia and North America, just as they attest it the numerous discoveries Siberian, Canadian and American fossil sites.
During the pleistocene they evolved diverse adaptatives forms, responding to the latitudinal distribution and the glaciers distributions that covered good part of the north hemisphere, exploding as alimentary resources the extensive herbaceous steppes.
There are authors that sustain that some populations of Mamuts survived until historical times as relicts⁸ in remote places of the Siberian tundra and of Alaska, places that conserve until today, in certain way, the prevailing conditions during the glacial pleistocene.
The history of the proboscidean group, at least inside South America begins with the migration of the mastodons, from Center and North America during the geologic and faunistic event that it happened during the Pliocene ⁹(among about 4 to 3 million years) know at the moment as "Great American Faunistic Interchange".
During that time period and until entered the Pleistocene took place, for geologic questions, a terrestrial communication to the rising of what today knows as Panamá. The rising of this current isthmus together with the drop of the sea level, allowed, with the communication of these two continents, the invasion (in both senses, but basically north to south) of great quantity of animal groups that enlarged its distribution areas, causing deep changes (mainly in South America) in the evolution of the groups invaders and invaded as well in the faunistic history of both continents.
Among the main families of mammals that migrated from the north, together with canids, felids, artiodactyls, perissodactyls, procyonids, some rodents and mustelids¹⁰ and other grops arrived the mastodons, groups all that together with other extended toward the south, embracing quickly great part of South America.
The mastodons found a continent until that moment without such predators that can make front of this preys tipes. However among the immigrants that came from the north, the same predators that harassed them in their original territory arrived also. I in fact refer to the big felids with specializations in that type of preys.
Quite later, with the arrival of another predator, the man, they still met with a much more difficult enemy, of the one which, perhaps, they didn't survive.

The " elephants " like preys

In 1923 Spillman discovered, in the village of Alangasi, to about 13 Kms to the west of Quito, in the Ecuadorian interandine area, an almost complete fossil skeleton of Haplomastodon waringi with the particularity that possessed vestiges of tips of stone lance, remains of charred bones and vents.
Other interesting characteristics that it presented the specimen in question were lack ribs of a single side of the animal, as well as a continuous and articulate series of destroyed cervical vertebras, possibly with an enormous rock. The detail that they were articulate it denotes that the break was still with the muscle and tendons in their place. Maybe the "blow of grace" to an animal already in the floor.
All these data are not surprising being paleoindians bands hunter and similar scenes have already been found with preys of great behavior along the Americas. 
The really curious of the case is the discovery of indications of ceramic material in the proximities with, apparently, Mayan influence dated for the centuries II, III and IV of the Christian era.
Naturally these remains were very discussed and discredited by scientists sustaining official postures that they doubted so much of the relictual permanency of these animals until so entered the Holocene (remember that we are speaking of around 1700 years ago a.p.) as the coexistence with men of the ceramic period, this is, culturally very advanced.
This type of remains demonstrates, besides the man's coexistence with the pleistocenic megafauna¹¹ and early holocenic¹², as well as perhaps until in recent periods, the Andean distribution of the genus Haplomastodon, that which before was considered valid only for Cuvieronius (that in its moment C. andium hadbeen baptized), of a much more restricted Andean distribution.

Naturally when the first men arrived in America they met with a fauna that included very similar animals to elephants that together with other animals as horses and some pilosa and ungulata they could become important preys, hunt trophies, iniciatics and maybe until cult objects, adoration and concerning.

In many places of Europe and Asia and Nortamérica there are in cave paintings, engraves and sculptures with representations of the animals on those that these primitive bands of hunters predates, among which are forms of animals related with mastodons like mamuts, data also confirmed with the discovery of remains associations of articles manufactured for human with mamuts spoils, besides with cuarcite arrows tips incrusted in bones of the same animals in life, an irrefutable proof that these animals were object of our ancestors' hunt during glacial periods.

And in Center and South America the situation not was different... 

In a series of monuments and inscriptions not only found in different archaeological sites of Mesoamerica that give testimony, exist one had exact knowledge from the existence of similar animals to the elephant, but rather it played an important role in the cultures simbology like the Mayan ones or even some older ones still, and not only, as it assigns the officially accepted history, a simple prey of the earliest stages in the Americas colonization on the part of paleoindians.

In the picture of the left that shows the enigmatic and polemic B Stela of Copán, where the arrow indicates one of the two figures that represent "elephants " clearly and perfectly carved on the rock.

At right show a drawing of the aspect that presented at little time of being "discovered", where the details of the "elephant" can be appreciated together with the proportions regarding human and implicitly its use (properly tamed?) as load beast. Notice you the presence in other side a semidestroyed elephantine form of the symmetrical figure.

Elephants and dragons

Let us examine from another point of view the possibilities that could have had the Mayan, or older centroamericans populations that themselves, of being able to had to imagine the aspect of an elephant.
Let us take to exemplify the Chinese dragons case:

From the most remote antiquity, the Chinese druggists had knowledge of the existence of "dragon teeth" that the peasants picked up in the abundant mesozoics¹⁴ outcrops¹³ along the whole Chinese territory.
These teeth, and we are possibly speaking of teropod dinosaurs fossils (the biped carnivores) and maybe until pterosaurs they were used by the old Chinese medicine (today they are still used in some places), previous reduction to powder, for cures of several illnesses, vitalizings  and still until as aphrodisiacs.
It turns out to be that the locations fosilíferos in question, is in many exceptional cases as for the fineness of the preservation of the remains, including in some cases skulls or practically complete specimens of the reptiles in question, it is easy sense the life reconstruction that the imagination of the old Chinese artists draw  to the dragons that, saving some structural details, they are quite similar to the reproductions of dragons that can be seen still in the paintings and murals, in comparison with teropod dinosaurs and stiller, with pterosaurs.
Now then, in the case of having to the hand a fossil pterosaur or teropod, perhaps an object taken as sacred, an artist with imagination can reconstruct since with enough accuracy the approximate aspect of a "dragon" these reptiles they don't present, in general, too many other horny¹⁵ or fleshy structures that go away too much of the profile of the bone, for what the recontruction is, until certain way, relatively easy, still without anatomical knowledge.
Let us see that it happens if the artist has a skull, still in perfect state, of a mammal, in particular an elephant or mastodon.
That that more he will get our artist's attention in reconstruction intent they are possibly the two defenses (commonly bad-called "eyeteeth") although in fact it is the incisive strongly modified, almost right superiors, or with a slight bend in hairspring form.  These robust structures, as all the teeth have, in general, a lot of bigger possibility of being conserved during the fossilization process and they are frequently even found inserted in their corresponding places, the alveoli of the superior maxilla.
The problem is presented of here in more, since the proboscide ("trumpet") it doesn't fossilize, since it doesn't possess any preservable tissue and neither it leaves any insert rake in the skull, unless our indigenous artist possessed some fine anatomical knowledge, since is not easy for somebody without these knowledge, to determine if an animal, when is only had her skull, if possesses or non proboscid. To see illustrations of skulls and reconstructions profiles.
Another detail to consider is the correct location of the eyes, that is to say the height of the orbits. I refer to this because the skull of an elephant or mastodon doesn't have closed orbits, or almost, as they possess it other groups of mammals, with that which is allowed to predict the almost exact location of the eyes in life of the animal.
Regarding the ears, they also correspond in size and location to the reconstructions of the mastodons center and South American (without forgetting to the Indian elephant like certain authors have postulated, product of interoceanics human contacts).
Lastly, and in reference to the corporal proportions of these "elephants" regarding the humans that accompany them in the stela the same ones would correspond approximately those of the mastodons, however it cannot be determined if one of them would walk on foot next to the same one, arriving to the height of their head, what would constitute the only proportional error in that the artist incurred.
Passing the clean of this information, would our artist be seen in a serious problem when trying to reconstruct correctly starting from a fossil or subfossil, for perfect that her conservation state is, without anatomical knowledge or stories of third (perhaps legends?) on the aspect that would present the animal in life.
Being not very probable that he can imagine the animal with so much accuracy, can think that, or see in person to the animal as the hunters of the north hemisphere could see and to reproduce in paintings and carvings to great quantity of  extinct fauna like elephants, mamuts, furry rhinoceros, etc, or he had to be able to have access to some chronicle of travelers or some media that it represented the "elephants" in question.
The possibilities that are presented to be able to determine of where it neither took out the information about the aspect of the animal they are not too many...

Question of times

Is known, through the paleontological record that the mastodons extinguished in Center and South America been near for 10.000 years, about 8.000 years B.C., together with an important quantity of mammals so much native as immigrants of the north hemisphere, that which would outline us several queries, among them:

- Were the manufacturers of the Copán stela contemporary  with, at least some of the three mastodons genus Center and well-known South Americans?. 
Of being this way, we could think that, they were these much older American human inhabitants from what the official history is willing to accept, keeping in mind that the antiquity assigned to the stela is the preclasic period (with a lot, more recent than the extinction of the mastodons).

- Did the mastodons survive in America or in certain areas of the same mastodons to the extinctions of the end pleistocene that affected to the rest of their pairs of the rest of continent?
Was these relicts, conserved, supposing that it has been this way, due to some climatic special conditions of the place or due to the man's intervention in their care and breeding like worshipped animal or related with some sacred entity? Let us remember that it has more than enough the sculpture their ownership it has been speculated to somebody important to the one who to glorify.

- Without considering the possibility of relictual fauna, that is to say taking as 10.000 years b.p. the extinction of the mastodons. Would we have to think of the possibility of running back about 8-9.000 years the date of the construction of the stela? Or that the inhabitants of Copán are not their makers and has already been there when they arrived?
A similar case is the erroneous attribution, according to some authors, of Tiahuanaco to the Inca, when in fact, not even themselves attributed it. There being indigenous legends that assign it an incalculable antiquity.

-For last, some authors in favor of the before Columbus contacts among America, Half East and the Asian southeast, still argue with a to prove contact theory between Central American towns and indians, the "inheritance" of figures of deities with elephant heads and that the before Columbus artists would have copied the designs starting from models and stories brought by navigators.

- Only like anecdotic fact can also make an appointment the case of investigators that attributed the figures of mastodons to the tail or a deformed beak of macaws that the authors of the stela would have deliberately exaggerated in an "artistic license".

Conclusions and reflections (with more doubts than certainties...)

If existed the mastodons in Center and South America until well entered the Holocene (some authors suggest like extinction date about 6.000 years b.p) and let us take that dated as temporary limit of the extinction of the same ones, this fact would necessarily toss back the temporary period of existence or origin of the Maya, or at least of the makers of the stela as well makes necessary the explanation to a series of doubts that this generates, as some of those that continue:

- What symbolic value did have among the Mayan the "elephant"?

- Was a sacred animal?

- Was it also considered a prey or given their shortage (animal in extinction and possibly reduced in number of specimens) did it conserve it?

- Could they tame or at least to use them as load beast just as still today in Asia?

- Was a transport form of the nobility?

- Or a war car?

In all the old African and eurasiatic cultures the elephant didn't unnoted, occupying an or several of the previously mentioned functions. Did maybe some have in the Maya or previous, at least during some time?
It also surprises the ivory shortage in Maya archaeological locations as material of construction of utensils. This one is not able to attribute to a imperfect record, since it is a material that is preserved in an excellent way.
Was because it was considered taboo or simply in scarce end? Can we maybe hope to find it in some maya tomb?
Lastly, another hypothesis that is worthwhile to consider is that some and non known species (and perhaps extinct) of proboscidean had survived until historical times, then retracted toward more inhospitable areas (and with less human presence) of the amazonia being as relict until its last days.

If this last it had happened this way they should have disappeared before the arrival of the Spaniards, since there not even is not any report of the first explorers (that could return to count it) of the presence of animals or legends it has more than enough similar beings. It is necessary to mention that yes there were other cryptofauna¹⁶ reports that then was discovered or they were mentioned by other explorers in more recent times, as the case of the big boids ¹⁷of the Amazons, by Ulrico Schmidl in 1530 and Percy Fawcett in 1920¹⁸.

In all the cases, be what is what be happened, it will be have more archaeological material to have more trial elements to be able to continue analyzing the presence of so fascinating animals in America and the contact type that had with human.

Bibliography

A.S. Romer - Vertebrate Paleontology 3rd ed. - (1966) The University of Chicago Press.

R.L. Carroll - Vertebrate Paleontology and evolution - (1988) W.H. Freeman and Company.

C. of Paula Couto - Tratado de Paleomastozoología - (1979) Academia Brasileira de Ciencias. (in Portuguese).

V. Ziswiler - Zoología Especial, Vertebrados - (1980) Ediciones Omega. (in Spanish).

R. Pascual - Paleontografía Bonaerense - (1966) Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas, prov. Buenos Aires. (in Spanish).

H. Wendt - El descubrimiento de los animales - (1982) Planeta (in Spanish).

Several authors - Paradigmas - (1986) P.Y.E.S.A. Chile. (in Spanish).

Notes

1- The term elephant is used quoted by not being true elephants like the animals to those that today calls this way himself, in spite of being closely related, evolutionarily speaking, with them. Return to text

2- A case, very mentioned, exists on the first skeleton of Megatherium americanum, a giant upper pleistocenic ground sloth of the approximate behavior to an elephant that happened on final of the XVIII century. When the fossil was remitted to Spain for its study, the king, being surprised of big animal existence, he requested to the local authorities that they sent him one alive or at least straw fill, this is, for the terminology of those times, dissected. Certainly that they could not fulfill the king`s order. Return to text

3- We must remember that for those times still, in occident they had not even thought about sketches of evolutionist theories, and until for the naturalists, the only valid ideas were the textual interpretations of the writings, as the genesis, regarding the creation of the organisms and their destruction for the divine anger by means of the flood for their extinction. Return to text

4- Eocene is, in geologic terms, a time lapse that comprise from 55 up to 34 million years b.p.Return to text

5- In other forms, of African, European and Asian lineages as Deinotherium, Platybelodon and a variety more than families and subfamilies, the development not was of the superiors incisives but of the inferior in some similar specializations to strongly smoothed tablespoons, with a possibly reduced proboscis for a logical mechanical impediment. Return to text

6- Pleistocene is, in geologic terms, a period of time that comprise from approximately 1.7 million years up to 10.000 years b.p. Return to text

7- Miocene is, geologically a temporary period that comprise from 24 up to 5 million years b.p. Return to text

8- Relict is a denomination that is used in biology for a population, generally reduced in number of specimens that is on the edge of the extinction or officially it was already considered extinguished (in the moment of its "rediscovery"). Return to text

9- Pliocene, is the geologic period that comprise from 5 up to aproximadamente1.7 million years b.p. Return to text

10- As current examples of these main families and orders, although there was more, we can mention the foxes and dogs for canidae; jaguars, sabertooth "tigers", cougars and small cats for felidae; deer, llamas, guanacos, peccary for artiodactyls; tapirs and American horses (Hippidion fossils, had extinguished since about 8.000 years) for perissodacthyls; coatíes and racoons for procyonidae; skunks, ferrets and otters for mustelidae, etc. Return to text

11- Is called megafauna to the big mammals, of more than a ton of weight that dominated during the Pleistocene and finished extinguishing (like generally accepted date has entered for about 10.000 and 6.000 years). Return to text

12- Holocene is the temporary period that comprise from 10.000 years b.p. and in the we are still. Return to text

13- Outcrop is a geologic term that designates an exhibition, in a given land, by means of the erosion, folding or other reasons, of a geologic stratum of a known antiquity that represents some temporary lapse of interest. Return to text

14- Mesozoic is, geologically, an era that comprise from about 250 to 65 million years b.p., characterized faunistically for the domain of the well-known biological group as dinosaurs, besides other varied reptilian forms, as well as the origin of the mammals and something more belatedly, the birds. Return to text

15- Horny refers to the horn, or more correctly keratin, that is the nitrogenated substance of which the fingernails are composed, hair, feathers, scales and ornaments (of reptiles) and, certainly, the cases of horns. Return to text

16- The term criptofauna still refers officially to fauna non descript for the science (it means hidden fauna), but existent in indigenous legends or with sights on the part of travelers or explorers, besides supposedly extinguished fauna that remains as relict in some far away place. These beings are still studied by cuestionated discipline of Criptozoology. Some of the most important cases, and then descripts by the science, the Okapi (Okapia johnstoni), an African jirafid and the Coelacantus (Latimeria chalumnae), a fish considerated extinguished for millons years, rediscovered from the thirties. Return to text

17- Boids, in reference to members of the family boidae that comprise boas and anacondas, of wide equatorial distribution. Return to text

18- Ulrico Schmidl, Viaje al Río de la Plata (1534) Ediciones Nuevo Siglo 1995 (in Spanish) and Percy H. Fawcett, A través de la selva amazónica (1953), Ediciones Rodas España. Return to text

Pablo A.Chiarelli