In September 2007 the Prehistory Laboratory of Siena University – Grosseto annex undertook the fourth excavation campaign in the Grotto di Spaccasasso (Alberese, GR), situated in the interior of the Maremma Regional Park.

The investigation continued inside the Copper Age funerary chamber that had been excavated in past years. A new area was opened on the south-western edge of the plateau. At what was probably the bottom of the sequence of funerary deposits, along the rock face up against which the funerary chamber had been created, a stony level was observed which appeared to have been deliberately arranged. This may be the base level of the chamber itself. In the remaining sectors of the chamber the presence of bones and pottery fragments continued, though to a lesser degree than in the overlying layers. Among the materials recovered during this campaign only a few quartzite flakes are of note. This raw material was used for making picks and mallets used for the quarrying of cinnabar from the limestone ledge onto which the grotto opened. The evidence brought to light by the opening of the south-western area began with a disturbed layer of soil covering a level of quarry detritus constituted by medium to small clasts with sharp edges. This was concordant with what emerged immediately south of the collapse of boulders delimiting the funerary chamber. The archaeological material from this area was extremely scarce and limited to a few quartzite flakes within the quarrying detritus.

During this years campaign a series of surveys were also carried out on the plateau above the Spaccasasso relief. A limestone ridge running in a north-east/south-west direction, apparently semi-submerged by an earth deposit, was identified. In the area in front of the ridge several quartzite implements were recovered, similar to those used for quarrying, found along the fan of detritus formed on the south flank of the relief, although they were smaller than the latter. A preliminary analysis of these finds identified a number of concentrations of artefacts which had not therefore been casually dispersed across the area. Thus, it may be suggested that the quarrying of cinnabar may also have occurred in other points on the Spaccasasso relief. Following these observations and as a preliminary to further stratigraphic investigations, a series of interventions to recover surface finds, as well as a topographical survey of the limestone ridge and the entire Spaccasasso hill, are planned.