Elephants: Proboscidea

Elephants and humans have interacted for tens of thousands of years. As long ago as thirty thousand years, people in Europe carved tools and ornaments from ivory tusks. Ivory has been used for carving because it's hard yet has elasticity, flexibility. Elephants play an important role in Asian culture especially. Evidence points to their domestication, taming for human use, as early as the third millennium B.C.E. in India. Soon after, they were used in the military to knock down enemy buildings. Royalty used to hunt while riding on elephants' backs. In the United States, elephants are raised in captivity in zoos and circuses.