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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 biological components strongly supports de Beer's thesis that Hannibal chose the highest transit col into Italia. In addition to other physical evidence, we present here new physical, geomorphological and stratigraphic evidence, all calibrated by radiocarbon dating, that suggests Hannibal's imprint on the landscape exists in coalescing alluvial fans in the upper Po catchment of northern Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clast weathering rinds, formed over varying lengths of time (102-106 years) in terrestrial environments, are measured to provide relative ages for deposits in glacial sequences, specifically to differentiate between glaciations, occasionally within glaciations. Other studies have sought to reveal weathering rates in non-glacial environments using microscopic techniques and isotopes. Recent analyses of clast rinds from tropical, mid-latitude and polar areas reveal an astounding corpus of organic and inorganic paleoenvironmental data derived from atmospheric and biospheric elements active in weathering clasts in glacial deposits over varying lengths of time. In some cases, extreme biochemical products, observed within the rind matrix, are seen to play a role in adjusting redox potentials important in the production of oxides and hydroxides and biominerals with variable compositions. Up to recently, rind analysis has been limited to use of the light microscope and SEM/EDS, which has greatly advanced our understanding of compositional inter-linkages of minerals and biotic elements, but only along horizontal axes within the rind. A test involving rind surface composition using vertical axis nanospaced layer analysis within rinds using focused ion beam (FIB) and TEM/STEM/EDX imagery and chemistry illustrates the power of data acquisition within the three-dimensional weathered archive. SCANNING 38:202-212, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If we are ever to find artifacts related to Hannibal's invasion of Italia the actual col route needs to be identified with certainty so that specific sites such as hearths, army bivouac/regrouping areas and other topographic features described in ancient texts are brought into focus. Some of the key environmental features include a gorge along the approach route, bivouac area near the summit of the Alps, and a blocking rockfall on the lee side of the range, amongst others. Strange that Kuhle and Kuhle (2012, 2015) provide a rebuttal of the Traversette Pass blocking rockfall (for location see Fig 12.1, Mahaney, 2008) as the route Hannibal followed into Italia when all evidence points to the one rockfall, a massive topographic feature described by Polybius nearly 2200 years ago. They present various quibbles over various translations of Polybius by no end of authors over the last two millennia, excellent photographs of various passes, but with the Traversette Col and major landforms misplaced on Fig. 1, and mention of fieldwork without offering any field evidence of any kind that might lead to historical archaeological exploration. Yet, it is clear from any author translating Polybius' Histories that Polybius did indeed see the rockfall mentioned in all ancient texts and he clearly understood the deposit to be a substantial mass, a two-tier event, that is, older and younger deposits superimposed on one another. Kuhle and Kuhle quote Walbank (1990) as a prime author who disputed translations of Polybius (Scott-Kilvert, 1979) etc. saying the topographic situation and time lines were inventions by others. What then, if one were to go to Paton (1922) revised by Walbank and Habicht (2010), only to find that the translation of the rockfall encounter runs parallel with Scott-Kilvert's translation, the one favored by Mahaney (2008, 2013). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both Polybius and Livy described a landslide/landslip that blocked the Punic Army's exfiltration from a high col on the water divide in the Western Alps. The landslide, more aptly termed rockfall, has been a source of contention amongst classicists for centuries despite the fact that only two cols--Clapier and Traversette--exhibit rockfall debris on the lee side of the Alps. While the Clapier rockfall is too small and too young to have provided blockage, the Traversette debris is nearly as Polybius described it when he re- traced the invasion route some 60 years after the event. His 'two-tier' description of the deposit, a doublet of younger and older rock rubble, including measurements of width and volume are close to modern measurements and prove that he knew, in advance, the route Hannibal had followed. It would take a practiced eye to correctly identify the stratigraphic complexity inherent in the Traversette Rockfall. Here we present weathering ratios, soil stratigraphic, mineral, chemical and microbiological evidence in support of Polybius' observations as a considerable background database for future geoarchaeological exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]