SZ DR ROBERT MUNRO ON 
manure. ‘To such an extent has this practice been carried, 
that many of these deposits, covering in most instances 
many acres in extent, have now entirely disappeared. In 
the course of the excavations various objects of antiquity 
were found by the workmen, such as Roman coins and tiles ; 
implements of bone, horn, bronze, etc.; the bones of 
domestic and wild animals, and, occasionally, human bones. 
But such discoveries failed for a long time to lead to any 
scientific investigation ; and when these mysterious mounds 
happened to be referred to by the early writers of this 
century, each had a theory of his own to account for them, 
Thus the celebrated naturalist, Venturi, assigned them partly 
to the Boii, a Celtic race, who here, according to him, 
cremated their dead warriors, and ceremoniously threw their 
weapons and animals taken in war into the burning pyres; 
and partly to the Romans, who selected these heaps for 
their dwellings and burial-places. Others supposed them to 
be the sacred and traditional cemeteries of successive races ; 
and it is a curious fact that many of these mounds are to 
this day crowned by a modern church or convent, around 
which the Christians have been in the habit of burying their 
dead. Nor did the opinion of Gastaldi, published in 1861, 
throw much light on the matter. Seeing that the Terremare 
were invariably situated near a running stream, he considered 
them the heterogeneous débris of different ages—Roman 
graves, cremations, and funeral feasts—which had been 
washed down and re-arranged by floods. But these, and all 
similar theories, based on the supposition that they were the 
abodes of the dead, were not in harmony with the domestic 
character of the pottery and implements turned up. The 
starting-point of a long series of researches by Professors 
Pigorini and Strobel, which have now completely cleared up 
the problem, was the announcement in 1861 that the remains 
of a palafitte, analogous to those found in lakes and peat-bogs, 
were to be seen beneath the true Terramara-deposits at 
Castione dei Marchesi. Nearly 100 of these mounds have 
now been more or less investigated, with the result that 
there can no longer be any doubt that they are the sites of 
ancient villages constructed on piles, and fortified by an 
earthen dyke and a ditch. In their construction one 
