On the third column from the right-hand side (and, more faintly, on the third column from the left-hand side too) I could make out a clear carving of an elephant’s head, ears, tusks and trunk. This was unexpected since there are no elephants anywhere in the New World. There had been, however, in prehistoric times, as I was able to confirm much later. Particularly numerous in the southern Andes, until their sudden extinction around 10,000 BC,20 had been the members of a species called Cuvieronius, an elephantlike proboscid complete with tusks and a trunk, uncannily similar in appearance to the
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