Excavations were carried out in two sectors of the Punic settlement: the northern quarter (Area B) and the so called “Casematte” (Area C).

Area B:
In 2017, the field season has involved more than 40 people between archaeologists, master and bachelor’s students, Italian and foreign PhD’s students and seven fellows of the Diplomazia2 Project, a joint project between the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian National Council of Research.

The excavations in tranches 6, 8, 9 15 and 16 provides new evidence for the Punic period of the settlement. The excavation of room 6 led us to clearly understand the main phases of life of the sector. The discovery of a votive offer in one of the foundation trances of the walls, led us also to better understand the building’s architectural renovations. The main room of the under-excavation building, room 7, revealed two different phases of use. The first phase, related with the use of the votive pit discovered during the 2013th season, shows a big quadrangular room. During the second phase of use, room 7 was divided afterwards into threes: room 7, 6N and 6S. Different floors were recognized during them excavation. The main phase is characterized by the presence of four Punic amphoras, mortars, plates and bowls and the presence of a lead weight in the same layers. These discoveries led us to value the productive purpose of this area of the settlement. The discovery of a several jointed sherds of Phoenician pottery in the under floor fill’s layer in room 6 and room 9 testifies a big construction phase of this sector of the building, but also the existence of a urban planning. The excavation in tranches 15 and 16 shows clearly the street’s different phases of life. After a main use as a road, chronologically connected with the main phase of the building, it was closed and used as open space for productive activities.

The use of photogrammetry increases thanks to the aerial photogrammetry by drone. The 3d modelling and reconstruction technology has been used in all the phases of the excavation in addition to the classic techniques.

In September 2016 new archaeological investigations were launched in the area of the so-called “Casematte e casermette” (Area C). This sector, occupied by a series of eleven rooms which were previously (and only) investigated in the seventies of the last century by the équipe of Ferruccio Barreca, is located on the eastern side of the hill, just below the plateau that was to house the acropolis of the settlement. The new research, started in 2016 e resumed between June and July 2017, was concentrated in the southern sector of the area and specifically in the room numbered as 1 in the plan which was elaborated after the Barreca investigations. The long-term objective is to clarify the physiognomy, configuration and destination of the complex of structures, known in literature as pertinent to an articulated defence system set up in the Punic age, but the functions of which remain actually to be clarified. Thanks to the 2016-2017 excavations, among the most interesting evidences it was possible to notice the presence of a small rectangular structure, located near the north-western corner of room 1 (sector 1A); inside several artifacts have been recovered, including a c.d. kernos, a vase the typology of which is usually connected to the cultic, private and public, dimension.