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6.2.2 Human Skeletons from Castenedolo, Italy ( Middle Pliocene)

One of the more significant Tertiary finds turned up in Italy. Millions of years ago, during the Pliocene period, a warm sea washed the southern slopes of the Alps, depositing layers of coral and molluscs. Late in the summer of 1860, Professor Giuseppe Ragazzoni, a geologist and teacher at the Technical Institute of Brescia, traveled to the nearby locale of Castenedolo, about 10 kilometers (roughly 6 miles) southeast of Brescia, to gather fossil shells in the Pliocene strata exposed in a pit at the base of a low hill, the Colle de Vento (Figure 6.3).

Figure 6.3. This section of the Colle de Vento, near Castenedolo, Italy (after Sergi 1884, p. 313), shows the general stratigraphic position of human skeletal remains found there. (1) The human fossils found by geologist G. Ragazzoni in 1860 lay on the bank of coral and shells, at a place where it was surmounted by Middle Pliocene blue clay, which was itself covered by red clay ( ferretto) washed from the top of the hill. (2) On January 2 and January 25, 1880, more human fossils, representing three individuals (a man and two children), were found about 15 meters (49 feet) from the 1860 site. The bones lay on the bank of coral, and were covered by about 2 meters (7 feet) of Pliocene blue clay, surmounted by a red layer of ferretto. (3) On February 16, 1880, the bones of a woman were found at a depth of 1 meter (3 feet) in the blue clay, which was overlain by a layer of yellow sand and a layer of bright red ferretto. In all three cases, Ragazzoni looked for signs of burial and found none.

Ragazzoni (1880, p. 120) reported: “Searching along a bank of coral for shells, there came into my hand the top portion of a cranium, completely filled with pieces of coral cemented with the blue-green clay characteristic of that formation. Astonished, I continued the search, and in addition to the top portion of the cranium I found other bones of the thorax and limbs, which quite apparently belonged to an individual of the human species.”

Ragazzoni took the bones to the geologists A. Stoppani and G. Curioni. According to Ragazzoni (1880, p. 121), their reaction was negative: “Not giving much credence to the circumstances of discovery, they expressed the opinion that the bones, instead of being those of a very ancient individual, were from a very recent burial in that terrain.”

“I then threw the bones away,” stated Ragazzoni (1880, p. 121), “not without regret, because I found them lying among the coral and marine shells, appearing, despite the views of the two able scientists, as if transported by the ocean waves and covered with coral, shells, and clay.”

But that was not the end of the story. Ragazzoni could not get out of his mind the idea that the bones he had found belonged to a human being who lived during the Pliocene. “Therefore,” he wrote, “I returned a little later to the same site, and was able to find some more fragments of bone in the same condition as those first discovered” ( Ragazzoni 1880, p. 121).

In 1875, Carlo Germani, on the advice of Ragazzoni, purchased land at Castenedolo for the purpose of selling the phosphate-rich shelly clay to local farmers for use as fertilizer. Ragazzoni stated (1880, p. 121): “I explained to Germani about the bones I had found, and strongly advised him to be vigilant while making his excavations and to show me any new human remains.”

A few years later, Germani noticed some bones. Ragazzoni recalled (1880, p. 121): “In December of 1879, Germani made an excavation, about 15 meters [49 feet] from the first place, to the northwest, and on January 2, 1880 announced to me the discovery of human bones between the bank of coral and the overlying shelly clay. The next day, I went there with my assistant Vincenzo Fracassi, in order to remove the bones with my own hands. These were: pieces of the left parietal, fragments of the occipital, the left temporal, the front part of the lower jaw with a canine, two loose molars, a cervical vertebra,