72 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Notwithstanding the doubt cast upon these by other students and 

 despite the fact that the Castenedolo skull does not possess a single 

 feature which we are accustomed to regard as primitive, not even 

 thickness of bone, Sergi has never faltered in his belief that these 

 remains represent man as he appeared in Italy in the later Pliocene. 

 These skeletal remains were found embedded in Pliocene strata at 

 Castenedolo by Ragazzoni. They represent a man and a woman 

 and also two children, but only the skull of the woman was complete 

 enough for reconstruction. Sergi examined the skeletal remains and 

 the pit from which they were taken by Ragazzoni and was convinced 

 that the bones lay in an undisturbed bed of Pliocene age. We know 

 of only one independent fact that seems to lend support to this view. 

 The Olmo skull was found in the same region about 150 miles to 

 the south of Castenedolo. But while this was taken from a Pleistocene 

 desposit at a depth of 50 feet, the Castenedolo remains taken from 

 the Pliocene bed lay only a few feet from the surface. The Castene- 

 dolo skull is the exact counterpart of the Olmo skull in everything 

 but thickness of the vault. The Olmo skull is that of a male, while 

 the other is that of a female. Whether this difference in sex is suffi- 

 cient of itself to account for the difference in thickness is extremely 

 doubtful. The idea finds no support from the Piltdown skull which, 

 as we have seen, is very thick and yet is probably that of a female also. 

 If thickness of skull is a sine giia non of ancient human skulls, 

 as the main body of evidence at hand would incline us to think, 

 then its absence in the Castenedolo skull would seem to say that 

 the Castenedolo remains are not as old as the clay beds in which 

 they were found. In other words, their interment was subsequent 

 to the deposition of the bed and may, therefore, represent an intrusive 

 burial of a much later date. This is the view commonly taken. But 

 respect for Sergi s ripe judgment and the knowledge that there are 

 no facts at hand which positively militate against the possibility of 

 men of this type existing in the Pliocene, coupled with the fact that 

 we see more than one type of man on the earth in early Palaeolithic 

 times, should incline us to hold our judgment in supsense and await 

 further discoveries before finally rejecting Sergi 's claim for a Pliocene 

 origin for the Castenedolo remains. The fact that a relatively highly- 

 developed race can precede in time one of a lower type is witnessed 

 to by the 100-foot-terrace men with their relatively modern characters. 

 These we now know preceded the low, pithecoid Neanderthal men 

 of the Mousterian epoch. In the face of this evidence it Avould seem 

 rash to totally deny the claims Sergi makes for the Castenedolo 

 remains or to assert positively that no skull can be truly termed 



