The structures came to light on a piece of land, bordered to the north by the via Albarina and the south by via Claudio Marcello, during the construction of a house.
A large “defensive ditch” on a NW-SE alignment (average width 4m; depth 0.70m-1.80m) was identified. It was filled by three layers of naturally deposited material eroded by water. The earliest layer was characterised by coarse elements (gravel, cobbles, lumps of stone) whilst the upper layers were finer and contained a moderate quantity of early Iron Age (5th century B.C.) pottery. However, Roman occupation of the area is attested by finds of that period; mostly fragments of tile but also of olpae, amphorae and terracotta elements.
The investigation in the northern sector of the building site revealed the existence of four phases of activity, all falling within the prehistoric period.
In the first phase four small channels were cut into the rock, three on a W-E alignment, the other orientated N-S. When they fell into disuse the channels were filled with clayey soil containing occasional fragments of pottery and charcoal. In the following phase two water cisterns were dug. One of the cisterns was excavated from the bed-rock surface to a depth of 2.50m without reaching the bottom. It has a square plan (2m sides) apart from the upper section where the mouth is formed by a dry-stone circular construction built with evenly worked stones. The second cistern has a circular plan and is smaller and shallower (diam. 1.50m; max. depth 1.50m). The mouth is built in blocks of stone that are mostly rounded, aligned on the inner face and placed up against the terrain on the exterior. After a fairly long period of use the cisterns were abandoned and filled with earth containing material from the 5th century B.C. (480-400 B.C.). Subsequently the area was covered with dumped earth containing occasional fragments of material of the same date as that found inside the cisterns. (Stefania Jorio, Mimosa Ravaglia)