﻿438 Pt'of. Mantovani — Is Man Tertiary ? 



two distinct races ; the one, primitive or native, wMcli continued to 

 use flint weapons, perfecting their manufacture during the successive 

 Neolithic period ; the other of more recent introduction (but cer- 

 tainly derived from a more ancient and more highly advanced race as 

 regards its progress in civilization), which, invading the country, 

 gradually superseded the aboriginal flint-implement-making race. 



According to this view, the Latin population which actually 

 inhabits the Italian peninsula does not represent the primitive race, 

 but they are the descendants of an exotic people who brought to 

 Italy a civilization much in advance of the aboriginal race. 



If it be asked from whence came those early foreign settlers, 

 I think it will not be difficult to prove that they came from Asia, 

 where we also find remains of monuments of the highest historical 

 'antiquity, affording records of the most ancient period in human 

 civilization. 



The introduction into Italy of this exotic population is referable 

 to the dawn of the modern ejDOch, whereas the primitive inhabitants 

 of Italy were existing from the end of the Pliocene period, when 

 all the plains now stretching on both sides of the Apennines were 

 covered by the sea, and when the latest Tertiary deposits were being 

 spread over their submerged surfaces. In this remote time Central 

 Italy was rej^resented by an archipelago of mountainous islands, the 

 Apennines being washed to their feet by the waves of the Pliocene sea. 

 Even then primteval man inhabited the mountains, and their calci- 

 ferous caverns were his sole retreats, nor could he descend into the 

 plains until after their upheaval, when he doubtless witnessed the 

 gradual formation of the great Quaternary alluvial deposits and the 

 eruptions of the Latial Voicanos. 



Eeviewing the facts derived from these observations, it seems to 

 me permissible to draw the following conclusions as to the history 

 of primitive man in the Eoman country. 



1st. The earliest appearance of man in Central Italy can be traced 

 back to the end of the Pliocene period, his weapons having been 

 found in the oldest Pleistocene deposits, and perhaps also in the 

 latest Pliocene formations. 



2nd. Man was contemporaneous with the great extinct Mammalia. 

 He survived the Glacial j)eriod, and was witness to those imposing 

 scenes produced by the eruptions of the Latial Volcanos, in the great 

 alluvial deposits of which our present river- valleys were excavated. 



3rd. Primitive man at first lived in a very rough manner, using 

 only flint weapons of the Palasolithic type. Subsequently he traded 

 with people of another continent possessed of a higher civilization. 

 This continiied through the Miolithic period. In the Neolithic period 

 the primitive race was gradually replaced by the exotic one ; and 

 here our investigation ceases, and we enter upon the period of 

 ancient history and tradition. 



In the subjoined table I have attempted to show the geological 

 formations of the Eoman country in which the remains of pre- 

 historic n>an may be traced. 



