John Ranking

John Ranking was an English merchant and amateur historian who offered a variety of theories, particularly in relation to elephants, their place in human history and in the fossil record, specifically arguing that mammoth remains were the product of Roman and Mongol use of elephants in war and in violent sport, and, further, that the Mongols conquered the pre-Incan Americas, establishing the Inca dynasty under Kublai Khan's son, who became known as Manco Cápac, and these Mongols brought with them elephants into the New World.

Identity
The background of John Ranking is presently unknown to us, but we do find one lead by following a path through the Oxford periodical Notes and Queries: in the issue of 18 January 1896, a reader, E. I. Carlyle, asks after information on Ranking's life; this query received a response, some fourteen and a half years later, in the issue of 30 July 1910, the response from a George Ranking, Lieut.-Col., who offered to provide the information asked. Lt. Col. Ranking was George Spiers Alexander Ranking (1852-1934), surgical physician and educator who had been active in British India, the author of several books on the Urdu and Persian languages; George Ranking's grandfather was one John Jackson Ranking (1759-1830).