The 2016 excavation season of the Gabii Project (Mogetta Becker 2014) in the Archaeological Park of Gabii took place as usual between June and July. It was the eighth season in a row. The field operations had been concentrated around three sectors of the area, each of them representing different stratigraphic basins delimited by built up features and key topographical elements. Just one of these sectors, the Area C, had been previously excavated whereas Area G-H and Area I had been opened this year.

In Area C, the investigations were carried out mostly in the southern sector of the atrium house stretching across the whole city block. The excavation of the few preserved floor levels of the house dating to the 3rd 2nd c. BCE (Mogetta Becker 2014; Gallone- Mogetta 2013) revealed evidence of the first occupational phase of the complex, preliminary dated to the 4th c. BCE. The evidence consists of construction levels and drainage systems associated with a cistern. The investigation of the latter, brought back to light Archaic levels and features such as post-holes in association with an earth beaten floor of crushed yellow tuff, a rectangular hearth made of horizontally laid pottery fragments, in addition to other badly preserved floors and an infant burial with no grave goods. Furthermore, a tuff curvilinear wall was exposed: it might be the continuation of the delimiting wall of the adjoining Archaic compound in Area D (see Fasti 2014 and 2015).

The Area G-H is a vast sector including sections of two city blocks overlooking the main thoroughfare to the North and to the South respectively, as well the road itself (Mogetta 2014). In Area G the excavation was carried out in the front of the city block occupied by an Imperial building with walls in opus mixtum and opus incertum. Unfortunately, deep late Antique spoliations had truncated and destroyed all the floor levels of these rooms. Dry little walls, arranged in rough parallel lines and made of stones, architectonic fragments and pottery sherds had been uncovered either inside the rooms and on the basalt road surface. These features, dating to the late antique period, probably had an agricultural function since they retained selected soil and bear witness of the abandonment and obliteration the urban layout. The Area G instead includes the thoroughfare and a pluristratified monumental complex located to the south of it. The excavation was limited to a room originally built in tuff opus quadrarum, dating to the Republican age, which underwent major transformations in the Imperial age with the construction of walls in opus incertum, opus reticulatum and and opus mixtum.
Area I is located in the southern part of the city block with the Area C Republican house. It opens directly on to the main thoroughfare (Mogetta 2014). The excavation revealed here a productive complex dating between the 2nd and the 3rd c. CE. The rooms alongside the northern limit of the complex were used for the wine production as clearly testified by a press, the bottom of a cocciopesto low basin and a deep settling basin connected to the latter with a lead pipe. Another elongated rectangular basin had been uncovered in the NW sector of the area. Round cuts, probably for embedded dolia (not preserved in situ) had been excavated in the central section of the complex. Finally, in the sector opened towards the main road, the evidence had been badly truncated by spoliations reaching even the earlier levels of the complex.

The 2016 exacation season allowed us not just to confirm the existence of extensive evidence related to the Archaic phase of the site, but also to better understand the transition to the Republican age. Furthermore, it was possible to investigate for the first time mid and late Imperial levels and to shed light on the abandonment of this crucial site of ancient Latium.