Between the 20th August and 12th September, the prehistory department of the University of Siena undertook the eighth excavation campaign at the Buca di Spaccasasso (Alberese, GR), in the Parco Regionale della Maremma.
Students from Trømso University (Norway) and Florence University also took part. During the excavation, a survey continued in the area above the Buca di Spaccasasso in correspondence with another possible site for the extraction of cinnabar.

The excavation investigated the layout of the Copper Age funerary chamber whose fill was excavated in 2011. This led to the start of excavations on the underlying mine levels whose detritus had clearly been adapted in preparation for the installation of the funerary structure itself. The chamber was installed up against the limestone wall containing cinnabar veins and onto which the “Buca” di Spaccasasso opened, at the point where the detritus from the cinnabar extraction was accumulated, in correspondence with the front of the mine. Here, the wall had been artificially rectified and was characterized by rough, sharp surfaces. In order to house the funerary structure, the mining detritus was removed to create a level surface and an accumulation of material was used to form a cordon around the chosen area. Boulders and stones were arranged so as to act as containment along the western edge of the chamber, opposite the calcareous rock face. There were chips of green stone and a number of spherical heads from small mallets, also made of green stone, as well as limestone chippings smeared with cinnabar dispersed among the mining detritus. A sort of deposit of large blocks of red quartz arenite emerged at the mouth of the “buca”, that appeared unused. The amount of green stone in the detritus and the small mallet heads together with the limestone chips smeared with cinnabar, suggest this level was formed during a phase during which the cinnabar itself was “dressed”. In fact, it is possible to suggest that following the detachment of large limestone blocks, probably carried out using large quartz arenite tools, well attested on the fan descending downhill and to a lesser degree at the foot of the mine front, work continued with the breaking up of the blocks in order to recover the cinnabar minerals within them.

The continuation of the survey immediately uphill from the “buca” confirmed the concentration of mining tools in the proximity of what could be a cavity, at present blocked by collapsed material, opening in the limestone bedrock running north-south along the hill. Last year’s survey identified the presence, below a substantial concentration of mining tools, of a number of subterranean cavities with sub-vertical and sub-spherical morphology. These will be investigated during the next campaign.