"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.) [Illustration: =Fig. 83.=--CASTIONE and various other Terremare in the vicinity of PARMA. Nos. 1 to 12 and 18 to 20 = ½, and the rest = ¼ real size.] Illustrations of some of the industrial remains found at Castione, and other places in the neighbourhood of Parma, are given on =Fig. 83=. MONTALE.