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From the above statements by Ragazzoni, it appears that the finds of 1860 and 1880 (except the complete female skeleton) were made in places on the slope of the hill where the layer of yellow sand covering the blue clay had been stripped away by erosion (Sergi 1884, p. 314). The hill at Castenedolo (Figure 6.3) was approximately 25 meters (82 feet) high. The top layer was recent soil. Below that, on the summit of the hill, was the red ferretto. Next in sequence came layers of glacial deposits and conglomerate. Below these came several layers of sand and clay. Then came the above-mentioned yellow sand, followed by the blue Pliocene clay in which the skeletal remains were discovered. Ragazzoni (1880, p. 126) indicated that even in the places where the blue clay had been exposed, the rain had washed down a surface layer of red ferretto deposits. Thus, for all the fossil discoveries, a layer of bright red clay was apparently lying above the blue clay. Any burial would have certainly produced a noticeable mixing of different colored materials in the otherwise undisturbed blue clay layer, and Ragazzoni, a geologist, testified that there was no sign of such mixing.

Of course, one could always propose that the skeletons (other than the adult female skeleton) were buried in the blue clay at a time when the red hillwash was not present. But this is unlikely. The red ferretto at the top of the hill would, it seems, have been continually carried down the hillside by rain or melting snow. Only under some unusual circumstance would it not have been present over the blue clay. Also, the blue clay had its own stratification, any disturbance of which would have been noticed.

Ragazzoni (1880, p. 126) then dealt with another possible objection to his conclusion that the human bones from Castenedolo were as old as the Pliocene layer in which they were found. Perhaps streams had stripped away the layers covering the blue clay and penetrated part way into the blue clay itself. The human bones could then have been washed into hollows, and new material could have been deposited over them. This could explain why there were no signs of burial. But Ragazzoni (1880, p. 126) said that it was highly unlikely that the human fossils had been washed recently into the positions in which they were found: “The fossil remains discovered on January 2 and January 25 lay at a depth of approximately 2 meters. The bones were situated at the boundary between the bank of shells and coral and the overlying blue clay. They were dispersed, as if scattered by the waves of the sea among the shells. The way they were situated allows one to entirely exclude any later mixing or disturbance of the strata.” Ragazzoni (1880, p. 126) further stated: “The skeleton found on the 16th of February occurred at a depth of over 1 meter in the blue clay, which appeared to have covered it in a state of slow deposition.” Slow deposition of the clay, which Ragazzoni (1880, p. 123) said was stratified, ruled out the hypothesis that the skeleton had recently been washed into the blue clay by a torrential stream. Ragazzoni (1880, p. 126) added that the blue clay “was also in such a condition as to exclude any rearrangement by human agency.” At the place where this complete human skeleton was discovered, the blue clay was still covered by a layer of yellow sand and a layer of red ferretto. The absence of any mixture of yellow and red materials in the blue clay eliminated the idea of recent intrusive burial.

Ragazzoni (1880, p. 126) concluded: “These facts demonstrate the existence of man in Lombardy during the Early Pliocene.” He stated elsewhere in his report: “To render it perfectly clear to anyone that the terrain in which the bones and skeleton were found belongs to the Early Pliocene, I thought it convenient to offer a sample of the fossils that exist there in abundance” (Ragazzoni 1880, p. 124). He then referred his readers to an accompanying illustration of fossil Pliocene shells. Geologists who examined the blue clay layer of