We all know the legend, but I'm wondering if any archaeologies from the Roman period or later managed to find anything from Elephant feces, bones, or footprints in Southern France or the Alps.
I imagine that at one point or another Romans or others living in the Alps must have taken a skull or tusks off a dead elephant, maybe put them up in their houses, talked about them. Supposedly hundreds of Elephants died in the crossing, there must have been some remains.
If we're talking about modern times in principle the snow might have preserved the remains of some of Hannibal's elephants? Maybe in the course of time Germanic tribesmen, Napoleon's soldiers, or others probably collected any remains that were still there, but I cant seem to find any record of anybody finding one of Hannibal's elephants in the mountains.
This question actually has a very easy, if probably very unsatisfying answer.
Supposedly hundreds of Elephants died in the crossing, there must have been some remains.
According to our ancient sources, none of the elephants died. They were starved, probably tired and highly stressed, but there is no indication that any of the animals died during the crossing (which certainly isn't true for the men and pack animals of Hannibals army). Hannibal set out from Spain with 37 elephants, and arrived in Italy with 37 elephants. That all of them survived is something all ancient sources agree on. However, most of them died during the battle of the Trebbia (which took place in rain and snow and led to the death of a lot of horses from the cold as well) or shortly thereafter, and only one of them survived the following winter. I'm afraid there's not much more to it. The difficulties were certainly colossal and could have led to total disaster, but for the elephants at least, the crossing of the alps didn't result in death, though that came shortly after.