As short time ago pete claimed that no lion remains have been found in Israel. That seemed unlikely to me but who cares right? But yesterday, there was a program on tv about lines where it said that at one point that lions were the most widespread mammal on the Earth their range spread far beyond Africa.

Seeing the argument repeated I found this in a Google search.

No lions in Israel?

Here is an interesting quote.

"More recent archaeological excavation confirms this:

"The largest faunal collections and most intensive archaeo-zoological research for [the Chalcolithic] period have been carried out in the northern Negev. This biological data provides us with a detailed picture of human/animal relations during this formative period. … If Shiqmim is taken as a representative sample for the valley, sheep … and goat … make up over 90 percent of the faunal assemblage with the remaining 10 percent consisting of cattle, … dog, equid and ca. 3.8 percent of wild animals (gazelle, hartebeest, hippopotamus, lion, small cat, fox, hare, ostrich, bird and fish). (The Archeology of Society in the Holy Land, ed. Thomas Levy, New York, Continuum, 1998, pp. 231-32)""

I wonder where the idea of no lion remains in Israel came from.