Part 24

Such was the general tenor of the opinions in regard to the terremare up to 1877, when, owing to the interest then taken in these singular remains and with the view of clearing up some of the contested points, the Minister of Public Instruction ordered a fresh excavation to be made at Castione under the superintendence of Professor Pigorini. The portion selected was an oblong space at the north side of the church, beginning at the margin and stretching inwards for a considerable distance. The result of this was the disclosure of a new and remarkable feature in its structural arrangement. At the inside of the earthen dyke, and intervening between it and a forest of piles which extended towards the interior, was a series of small rectangular enclosures constructed of horizontal beams laid one above the other. These enclosures, which extended side by side like a string of log-houses, formed an abrupt facing to the dyke. The beams were roughly hewn, and partially mortised into each other at the points of crossing, from which their ends projected irregularly, some even extending from one compartment to the next. Inside these log-houses there was nothing but rubbish--clay, gravel, bits of wood, etc.--packed firmly together. But it is needless to enter upon all the details of this curious structure; suffice it to say that Pigorini came to the conclusion that their purpose was to support the inside of the earthen dyke (_contrafforte dell' argine_). The piles were in rows about two feet apart, and each pile was separated from its neighbour by an interval of one foot. When the space was cleared there was quite a forest of these piles, and it is noteworthy that they were all inclined in one direction, viz. north-east, a fact which is well shown in the first of the two photographic illustrations here given (=Fig. 82=).

From an examination of the composition of the soil outside the limits of the station Pigorini ascertained that the bluish clay bed forming the subsoil of the terramara mound corresponded to what was the surface of the surrounding plain when the terramaricoli founded their settlement, and that the thick mass of alluvial yellowish clay in which the mound is now partially buried has been subsequently deposited.

Other interesting details are given in Pigorini's exhaustive and admirable report regarding the structure of the ditch, dyke, platforms, hearths, etc., and the peculiarity and composition of the strata. But these the limits at my disposal in this work compel me to pass over, and I must be content with quoting the following summary of his conclusions in regard to the origin of the station:--

"The terramaricoli having arrived at the place now called Castione dei Marchesi did not select for their encampment a low-lying spot subject to inundations, but the top of a slight elevation of bluish clay not yet covered with the more recent alluvial deposits. The space measured out for the station was of a rectangular shape and covered about a couple of acres. This area they surrounded with a ditch, the excavated soil being thrown to the inside and so they formed a dyke 6 feet in height, which consequently enclosed a _bacino_ having its base on the original soil of the plain. The area thus defined had an orientated position with a deviation of 30° from east to north.

"Having completed the surrounding ditch and dyke, the next step was to construct along the inner margin of the dyke a series of log-houses, bound together and filled with _débris_, over which they finally laid a gravel pavement. The main object of this elaborate structure was to support the earthen dyke. Next they planted all over the _bacino_ rows of piles at regular intervals, whose tops reached to the level of the surface of the _contrafforte_, and over them they laid horizontal planks of wood which, in certain places, were covered with beds of clay (_tavole coperte d'argilla_).

"On this platform were constructed the huts of the people. The exact form of these huts has not been ascertained, but they were certainly made of wood, straw and clay, no other material having been used either at Castione or any other terramara. The village was now complete, and the inhabitants, in the course of their domestic avocations, threw the refuse of food and other _débris_ into the space below, probably by means of holes, which gradually accumulated until the space became completely filled up.

"When this stage was reached the people did not change their chosen site, but proceeded to erect a new palafitte above the old one. They elevated the dyke by extending its base, placed new _contrafforte_ along its inner side superimposed on the older ones, and thus continued to convert the surface of the first platform into the base of the new _bacino_. Here they repeated the operation of planting it with piles, and over these a new platform and huts were erected, which were occupied as before, until the accumulation of _débris_ again drove the inhabitants to construct a third dwelling-place at a still higher level." (B. 407, p. 44.)

Illustrations of some of the industrial remains found at Castione, and other places in the neighbourhood of Parma, are given on =Fig. 83=.

MONTALE.

Another instructive station, which I visited along with the distinguished archæologist, Sig. Crespellani, is that at Montale, a few miles south of Modena. Here the elevation of the mound is more marked than at Castione, as the entire mass stands clear above the surrounding plain, and, like it, the central part is occupied by a church and some other religious buildings. The discovery of this terramara was not made till 1868, but, its contents being readily accessible, the progress of its demolition has been rapid. In 1871 it was selected as the most suitable to be visited by the members of the International Congress, and, for their special benefit, a new section was then opened up. The annual explorations conducted in this mound, of course regulated by agricultural demands, are now entirely in the hands of the authorities of the Museo Civico at Modena, who appropriate all rare objects for the enhancement of their large and valuable prehistoric collection. The director of the Museum, Sig. Boni, publishes, from time to time, a report of the excavations and of the results obtained. (B. 380 and 421.)

According to Boni, the area of the mound, including the dyke, was 9,000 square mètres (about 2 acres), of which about 4,000 are occupied by the ecclesiastical buildings already referred to. Of the remaining space available for explorations about one half has been cleared away. On the north side of the church, just on the verge of the pit where the workmen were riddling and preparing the saleable stuff, stood an enormous chestnut tree, whose roots could be seen below the grassy surface projecting from the perpendicular face of the section. The priest, whose house forms part of the ecclesiastical buildings on the mound, soon joined our party, and expatiated on the fabulous age of this tree, but which Crespellani reduced to something like 150 or 200 years. The entire height of the section here exposed would be from 15 to 20 feet, the upper five of which consisted of mouldy soil, which has, of course, to be removed before the commercially valuable stuff is reached. In the course of the removal of this upper stratum the following objects were found, viz. an iron hatchet, fragments of a spur, several keys, and some much corroded coins of the Old Empire. The remains of fifteen human burials were also encountered, three of which had the bodies enclosed in cists made of large bricks. Indeed, some large tiles, apparently part of a sepulchre, were still to be seen protruding from a part of this layer. Near one of the unenclosed burials lay a terra-cotta lamp and a bone comb with a double row of teeth. Sunk into the upper part of the terramara beds was a primitive lime-kiln, "evidently," says Boni, "introduced into the _cumulo marnoso_ at a later period than its formation." (B. 386, p. 13.)

The great depth of this upper bed of mould, which exists in all the terremare, is very remarkable and most puzzling to archæologists. Boni thinks it was spread over the mound at some posterior time, either for agricultural purposes, or as hygienic precautions, or perhaps from motives of respect to the supposed sacred character of its contents.

All the rest of the section was terramara proper, whose contorted and wave-like beds could readily be distinguished. Sticking in the face of the section were innumerable fragments of black pottery, broken bones, and bits of charcoal. All the stuff, before being disposed of, was passed through riddles, and what remained was thrown aside as useless rubbish, the heaps of which could only be estimated by cart-loads. The riddlings consisted almost entirely of broken pottery, among which were occasional clay weights and more frequently spindle-whorls, together with the bones and horns of animals, many of which were converted into implements. Bronze objects were comparatively rare.

Part of a large earthen dyke which is supposed to have surrounded the entire mound is still left exposed on the north side. It measured from 20 to 30 feet in breadth at the base and 11½ feet in height. Boni, in his description of this dyke, states that a section which ought to be conical is not so, but more slanting on the outside; also, at the inner side, its contents are occasionally seen to overlap the terramara beds. From this and some other structural details he adduces evidence to show that the dyke had been subsequently added to by the terramaricoli during their occupation of the settlement. Bearing in mind what Pigorini says about Castione, the significance of these observations will be readily perceived.

For illustrations of relics from Montale see =Fig. 84= and =Fig. 85=, Nos. 1 to 6; and for its literature B. 157, 184, 186, 204, 231, 298b, 367, 386, 421, 422, 425a'. An account of the excursion to Montale by the members of the International Congress is given in their Proceedings for 1871 (Bologna).

CASALE ZAFFANELLA.

Another typical example of the terremare, which I wish to describe shortly, lies 1¼ mile north of the Po, near the town of Viadana. This station was accidentally discovered a few years ago by the brothers Pietro and Giacomo Tassoni, the peasant proprietors of a field in which they were making trenches for planting vines. In the course of their operations they dug up fragments of pottery, which they brought to the Arciprete Antonio Parazzi of Viadana (already widely known as a skilled archæologist and the founder of an excellent museum of the local antiquities of the district). Some of the fragments of pottery turned out to be Roman, while others were undoubtedly pre-Roman, and this led to a preliminary investigation of the locality, in which the experienced eye of Parazzi soon detected the site of a terramara dwelling. A full report of the subsequent excavations and results obtained was published by Parazzi in the _Bullettino_ for 1886 (B. 451)--a monograph which is a perfect model of the descriptive details of an investigation conducted on scientific methods.

First of all let me emphasise the fact that there was here no mound at all. The field was quite flat, and to reach the surface of the terramara beds a stratum of considerable thickness, varying from 1 to 2 feet, of the ordinary alluvial deposits had to be passed through. The terramara beds then continued for a depth of 8 or 10 feet, underneath which came the subsoil on which the settlement was originally constructed. It is noteworthy that in one part of the area, underneath the terramara beds proper, a peaty bed, similar to that at Castione, was discovered. To make the resemblance still more striking, this _terra uliginosa_ also contained the remains of a palafitte. These piles were very well preserved, and some of them may now be seen in the Museum at Viadana.

It was impossible, without enormous labour, to explore this settlement to a great extent; but by a few well-directed trenches Parazzi ascertained that it was of a quadrangular shape, and orientated to within 11 degrees, and that it was surrounded by a ditch and a dyke. The enclosure, exclusive of the area of the dyke, had a superficial area of about one English acre. Its four sides measured, respectively, 208 (N.), 218 (S.), 227 (W.), and 237 (E.) feet. The dyke was 26 feet broad at its base, and 11 feet 6 inches high, and showed that it had been added to on three different occasions. Its inner edge appeared to have been very steep, a fact which suggests that, as at Castione, there had been some kind of support to prevent the earth from falling in. The ditch was 34 feet wide, and its maximum depth was 6½ feet.

The underlying peaty stratum, containing the piles, occupied much of Parazzi's attention, and he goes largely into its minutiæ. One curious fact which he records is that the dyke passed over its middle, leaving a considerable portion of the _terra torbosa_ and palafitte outside the area of the terramara deposits. This undoubtedly suggests the idea that the palafitte existed prior to the terramara settlement. From the character of the relics we shall, however, see that both belonged to the same age and people.

On the surface of the terramara beds Roman remains were largely met with, and in one place they came upon a rectangular excavation, measuring 18 square mètres, containing ordinary earth, bricks, tiles, fragments of jars, and other Roman pottery. When this was cleared out there was found at the bottom, at a depth of 7 feet 6 inches, a Roman pavement, and the stratified terramara layers could be distinctly seen in the perpendicular walls. Clearly this cellar was constructed long after the deposition of the terramara beds.

Nor is the settlement of Casale Zaffanella a solitary example in the Viadana district. Already Parazzi has prepared a large map of the neighbourhood, which finds a suitable position on the wall of his museum, with no less than 12 terramara stations marked on it. Among these there is one Cogozzo (B. 372b) situated about one-and-a-quarter mile from the town and within 200 yards of the Po, which presents the same features as that at Casale Zaffanella, and also contains traces of a palafitte. Its area is an orientated quadrangle covering about an acre, but it is completely buried in mud, its highest point being 31 inches below the surface. It is surrounded by a ditch and dyke; and, moreover, the inner edge of the dyke was found to be almost perpendicular, showing that originally it must have had some kind of _contrafforte_.

Some of the objects from this group of terramara stations, now deposited in the Viadana Museum, are represented in =Fig. 86=, Nos. 1 to 13.

GORZANO (MODENA).

The old-school views advocated by Dr. Coppi, viz. that the terremare were remains of funeral pyres (_roghi_), so much biassed his mind that for many years he appeared to have paid little attention to the significance of the strata, and consequently the first two volumes of his magnificently illustrated monograph on the terramara settlement at Gorzano (B. 207 and 261) lose much of their value from having the objects of different ages indiscriminately mixed. This defect is so far removed in the third volume that he divides the deposits into upper and lower, corresponding to the historic and prehistoric periods. But, notwithstanding this defect in Dr. Coppi's earlier works, his investigations are of considerable scientific value, as his numerous matter-of-fact observations are strictly to be depended on.

The accompanying plan and sections of Gorzano will convey some idea of the position of the terramara beds in respect to their immediate surroundings. The deposits (marked c on section A) extended in length about 90 to 100 mètres from north to south, and 70 mètres in breadth, with an average thickness of 3½ mètres. The settlement was constructed on a natural elevation, rising about 9 mètres above the rest of the plain and 11 above the bed of the adjacent stream Tiepido. It was surrounded by a ditch and a dyke, and it also contained the remains of a palafitte. The existence of piles is clearly proved by Dr. Coppi himself, who gives a section (C) showing their respective positions, but at the same time he denies that they indicate the remains of a palafitte.

Of the comparative frequency of industrial remains in the terramara deposits, a correct notion will be got from a study of Dr. Coppi's report of the excavations at Gorzano during the year 1875. In this year there were 274 cubic mètres excavated, covering an area of 180 square mètres; and from this mass of _débris_ there were collected 3,051 objects, of which 173 belonged to the upper or Romano-mediæval stratum, which varied from 1 to 1½ mètres in thickness. The rest of the objects, which came from the under strata, and were reckoned prehistoric, are thus classified:--852 industrial objects, 1,544 remains of vertebrate animals, 285 remains of molluscs, 153 vegetable remains.

The 852 industrial remains are again thus assigned:--

_Bronze._--50 objects: viz. eight pins, four axes, 12 daggers, one chisel, two awls, six discs, one spindle-whorl, two fragments of sickles, and 14 diverse bits.

_Bone._--80 objects: viz. 38 needles and pins (of which 23 are entire), nine spatulæ, 17 pointers, three chisels, six teeth, one lamina, five awls, and one handle.

_Horn._--62 objects: viz. seven small wheels, one cylinder, one comb, two arrow-points, 17 spatulæ, 12 pointers, two awls, three ornaments, two picks, four handles, and 17 diverse pieces.

_Stone._--68 objects: viz. two flint knives, two pendants, four spindle-whorls, two discs, four weights, six grinding-stones, one polisher, three flint nodules, four flint flakes, and 30 worked stones.

_Terracotta._--585 objects: viz. 494 spindle-whorls (=Fig. 85=, No. 17), two cylinders, 12 weights, 68 vases, three covers, five percolators, and one small animal figure.

The bones capable of being determined represented the following animals:--15 oxen, 25 sheep or goats, seven stags, eight roes, 30 pigs, two wild boars, 14 dogs or wolves, one cat, eight birds, one tortoise, and 15 toads.

The industrial remains from the upper stratum were as follows:--The central part of a Byzantine crucifix, one lamp, two fibulæ, three rings of bronze, 12 spindle-whorls of terra-cotta (of which four were glazed), one spindle-whorl of amber, one spindle-whorl of glass, two spindle-whorls of talc; of iron there were 20 darts, two lance-heads, eight knives, seven keys, one lock, eight buckles, one horseshoe, one bullock-shoe, and 11 undetermined fragments; five fragments of glass vessels; one sword-handle of wood with bronze mountings; four bronze fragments; 25 pieces of pottery (three with potters mark); a small basin of brick; 52 coins (of which 46 were together); and some slag, etc.

The objects in the upper stratum were mostly associated with the Oratorio di S. Alberto, built about the early part of the seventeenth century, and other mediæval buildings now entirely demolished. It was found to have been built over a still older church, which dated from the third century. A few of the coins were Roman of about the same date, but the largest number dated from the end of the twelfth or commencement of the thirteenth century, and a few were of still later date. There was also a Christian cemetery found containing a number of skeletons.

In 1879 Coppi published (B. 340) an account of further discoveries, and among other objects he describes several stone moulds (10 for pins, five for lance-heads, and seven for daggers), a stone weapon of nephrite, two flint knives, a weight of white marble, etc. Of bronze there are 12 pins, three needles, 20 dagger-blades, five chisels, nine awls, and a small wheel ornamented with _graffiti_, besides a quantity of other objects of horn, bone, pottery, etc.

In 1885 the workmen came upon a grave embedded in the virgin soil underneath the terramara beds, and supposed to be anterior to their formation. It was constructed of small unhewn stones, and the space enclosed measured 5 feet 10½ inches long, 1 foot broad, and 1 foot deep. This grave contained a human skeleton which lay on the right side with the head towards the east, and along with it were found a spatula of staghorn, fragments of fossil shells, and some bits of carbonised vegetable matter. (Crespellani, "Scavi del Modenese," 1886, p. 11.)

A few of the bronze objects from Gorzano are illustrated on =Fig. 85=, Nos. 9, 12 to 14, and 19 to 23.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE TERRAMARA SETTLEMENTS.

In the above sketch of the progress of scientific research into the terremare I have selected four typical examples for special description. We have seen that in one, viz. Montale, accumulated _débris_ stood as a clear mound on the surface of the surrounding plain, while that of Gorzano rested on a natural hillock. The Castione deposits also assumed the same form, but in this case the mound was only partially above the plain, the rest being buried in it. The tops of the piles found in its peaty stratum (_terra uliginosa_) were on an average 3 feet below the level of the present surface of the surrounding plain, and the lowest portion of this bed was a couple of feet still lower. In the fourth example, Casale Zaffanella, there was no mound at all visible, but on examination the remains of the settlement were found to be precisely similar to those of the others, only the mound was completely buried, as it were, in a sea of hardened mud.

The explanation of this will be readily perceived when we remember that the amount of submergence respectively shown in these instances is in the inverse ratio to their distance from the lower parts of the plain and its great water channels. The yearly inundations of the Po and its tributaries extend far and wide, each time leaving a film of mud, by the repetition of which, in the course of ages, the surface of the plain has become considerably elevated. Thus, the increase of silt since the terramara settlement of Casale Zaffanella was founded, amounts to 12½ feet--a depth sufficient to cover the highest part of the mound. It is difficult to say how much this levelling up process is accountable for the scarcity of these stations in the lower parts of the Po valley. That they existed, however, in close proximity to the river is amply proved by those stations at Viadana, as well as one or two others, for example, at Brescello, in the Parmensian district, on the south side of the river.

_Distribution._--Formerly the terramara deposits were supposed to be peculiar to the middle reaches of Parma, Reggio, and Modena; but later discoveries have upset this generalisation, as they are now shown to have a much wider distribution, embracing the provinces on both sides of the Po. (See Sketch Map, page 266.)