CHAPTER XIV 
CASTENEDOLO MODERN MAN 
No revelation of prehistoric man could be more convincing 
than the discovery of the Heidelberg mandible. We 
have no shadow of doubt as to its authenticity or signifi- 
cance. We accept as a definite and indisputable fact 
that there lived a primitive form of Neanderthal man in 
South Germany in early Pleistocene times, bestial in 
structure beyond all kinds of men now living. The dis- 
covery we are now to relate is the old and well-known 
story of Castenedolo — the antithesis of the one narrated 
in the last chapter. At Castenedolo, in North Italy, we 
obtain all the details relating to the finding of remains 
of a people of the modern type embedded in strata much 
older than the sands at Mauer. As the student of 
prehistoric man reads and studies the records of the 
" Castenedolo " find, a feeling of incredulity rises within 
him. He cannot reject the discovery as false without 
doing an injury to his sense of truth, and he cannot 
accept it as a fact without shattering his accepted beliefs. 
It is clear we cannot pass Castenedolo by in silence : 
all the problems relating to the origin and antiquity of 
modern man focus themselves round it. 
If the map of North Italy be examined, it will be seen 
that the railway between Milan and Verona keeps close 
to the southern flanks of the Alps, and passes the town of 
Brescia on the way. In i 860, Professor Ragazzoni — an 
expert geologist — was a teacher in the Technical Institute 
of Brescia. He was particularly interested in the fossil 
shells of the Pliocene formations which abound in North 
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