Reconnaissance of the Hannibalic Route in the Upper Po Valley, Italy: Correlation with Biostratigraphic Historical Archaeological Evidence in the Upper Guil Valley, France

Abstract

Controversy over the alpine route taken by the Hannibalic Army from the Rhône Basin into Italia in 218 BC (2168 cal BP) has raged amongst classicists for over two millennia. Because Hannibal crossed the Alps, the significance for identifying the route taken by the Punic Army lies more in its potential for identifying sites of historical archaeological significance than a resolution of one of history's most enduring questions. While compelling stratigraphic, geochemical and microbiological evidence has been recovered from an alluvial floodplain mire in the upper Guil Valley, located below the Col de la Traversette (about 3000 masl) on the French-Italian border, it potentially identifies the invasion route as the one originally proposed by Sir Gavin de Beer in 1974. The dated layers in several sections, termed the MAD (mass animal deposition) beds based on disrupted/churned bedding and key/specialized *

Critical assessment of Jenny's soil forming equation in light of cosmic airbursts on the Viso Massif

“…In the upper Po catchment, alluvial fans exemplify simplified stacked Ah/C/Cu/Ahb/Coxb/Ahb/ Cb/Cub profiles, forming immature pedostratigraphies that merge with deformed beds of oxidized and unoxidized sediment attributed to the passage of the Hannibalic Army (218 BC) (Mahaney et al, 2017a(Mahaney et al, , 2018b. These all carry 14 C ages of reworked sediment in the disrupted beds, with greater ages ranging from ~4218 ±63 cal BP to 9840 ±35 yr BP (Mahaney et al, 2018b).…”

“…1, 2) along the France/Italian Continental Divide; and third, to combined microscopic investigations of sands and rinds, which indicated an unexpected cosmic event (Mahaney & Keiser, 2013). While younger Holocene deposits were dated by AMS C14 (Mahaney et al, 2018b), no obtainable materials were recovered to date moraine and mass-wasted deposits laid down in the Late Glacial (LG) and Younger Dryas (YD).…”