There must always, however, remain a doubt as to the nature of this ancestral Tertiary man, until actual skulls and skeletons have been found, under circumstances which preclude doubt, and in sufficient numbers to enable anthropologists to speak with the same confidence as to types and races, as they can of his Quaternary successors. This again is difficult from the rarity of such remains, and from the fact that after burial of the dead was introduced, graves must often have been dug down from the surface into older strata, with which in course of time their contents become intermixed. No case, therefore, can be safely admitted where the find was not made by well-known scientific authorities, under circumstances which preclude the possibility of subsequent interment, and vouch for the geological age of the undisturbed deposit. This test disposes of all the alleged discoveries of human remains in the Tertiaries of the Old World, except one, and although it is quite possible that some may be genuine among those rejected, it is safer not to rely on them. There is one, however, which is supported by extremely strong evidence, and the discussion of which I have reserved for the last, as if accepted it throws a new and unexpected light on the evolution of the human race. The following is the account of it, taken from Quatrefages' _Races humaines_-- "The bones of four individuals, a woman and two children, were found at Castelnedolo, near Brescia, in a bed identified by its fossils as Lower Pliocene. The excavations were made with the utmost care, in undisturbed strata, by M. Ragazzoni, a well-known scientific man, assisted by M. Germani, and the results confirmed by M. Sergi, a well-known geologist, after a minute personal investigation. The deposit was removed in successive horizontal layers, and not the least trace was found of the beds having been mixed or disturbed. The human bones presented the same fossilized appearance as those of the extinct animals in the same deposit. The female skeleton was almost entire, and the fragments of the skull were sufficiently perfect to admit of their being pieced together so as to show almost its entire form." The first conjecture naturally was that it must have been a case of subsequent interment, a conjecture which was strengthened by the fact of the female skeleton being so entire; but this is negatived by the undisturbed nature of the beds, and by the fact that the other bones were found scattered at considerable distances throughout the stratum. M. Quatrefages sums up the evidence by saying, "that there exists no serious reason for doubting the discovery, and that if made in a Quaternary deposit, no one would have thought of contesting its accuracy. Nothing can be opposed to it but theoretical _à priori_ objections similar to those which so long repelled the existence of Quaternary man."