High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The history of elephants in Europe dates back to the ice ages, when mammoths (various species of prehistoric elephant) roamed the northern parts of the Earth, from Europe to North America (mastodons only occurred in North America.) There was also the dwarf elephant of Cyprus (Palaeoloxodon cypriotes), Sicily-Malta (Palaeoloxodon falconeri) and mainland (Palaeoloxodon antiquus). However, these became extinct several thousand years ago, and subsequently the presence of elephants in Europe is only due to importation of these animals.