in Mesopotamia (see Fig. 1.5). But there is no evidence that neolithic man in Italy was priest-ridden or tyrannized over, as the Egyptians and Akkadians were; he is rather to be thought of as the ancestor of the sturdy peasant stock which was to form the backbone of Roman Italy. * * * * * [Illustration: FIG. 1.5 Comparative table of early cultures. (C. F. C. Hawkes, _The Prehistoric Foundations of Europe,_ Table IV)] [Illustration: FIG. 1.6 _Terramara_ at Castellazzo di Fontanellato, Pigorini’s plan. (G. Säflund, _Le terremare_, Pl. 93)] Bradford’s methods are scientific, but archaeology has not always been the exact science it is today. Americans may be proud that the first recorded scientific excavation took place in Indian mounds in Virginia. The date was 1784, and the excavator was Thomas Jefferson. But thereafter archaeological progress was sporadic, and relapse accompanied advance. In the mid-nineteenth century most excavations in Italy were more like rape than science, their aim being to dredge up treasures for the nobility and the art-dealers. Thus when in 1889 the distinguished Italian anthropologist Luigi Pigorini excavated the site of Castellazzo di Fontanellato, twelve miles northwest of Parma, in the Po Valley, there was no absolute guarantee that the dig would be scientific. Yet Pigorini’s announced results have colored the whole picture of the Bronze Age in Italy, and it is only recently that they have been doubted. The story of his announced results, the growing scepticism, the re-examination of the ground, and the present state of the question is an illuminating if sobering one. What Pigorini was after was the evidence for the prehistoric settlements which have come to be called _terremare_. They owe their discovery, their name, and their destruction to the fertilizing quality of the earth of which they are composed. _Terra marna_ is the name in the dialect of Emilia for the compost heaps formed by the decay of organic matter in certain mounds of ancient date, mostly south of the Po. Farmers repeatedly found potsherds and other artifacts, often of bronze, in these mounds, and Pigorini determined to examine them before all the evidence should be dispersed. Castellazzo di Fontanellato is the most famous of his efforts. He found clear, though meager, evidence in pottery and metal artifacts (axes, daggers, pins, razors) of a Bronze Age culture, but no report of the levels in which he found these objects survives, and indeed in this as in most _terremare_ the farmer’s shovel has completely upset the levels. Roman terracotta, medieval pottery, and prehistoric bronze axe-heads jostle one another in confusion. Besides, the prehistoric site has been continuously inhabited, and, in consequence, the soil continuously turned over, ever since Roman times.