The 2011 campaign continued the excavation of Sector 2 and the stratigraphic analysis of the east-west section. A limited survey was undertaken in the North Field. Sector 2 is a key point for the understanding of the site’s evolution. In fact, it is situated in an area in which the alluvial deposit, datable to the Iron Age, has preserved the latest occupation levels. Here, features were removed relating to the “hearths” phase, underlying levels 19b and 301 and characterised by a sequence of installation, use and abandonment of pyro-technological structures.

The aim was to investigate the site’s first phase. In the zone of quadrants ZA-E 1-6 a cumuloform dump was excavated, comprising a sandy matrix containing numerous pottery fragments, bronze slag, bones, parts of broken-up hearths, Unio and pottery wasters. The dump rested on level 19c, filtering in between it and the overlying US 301. In the contact layer between 19c and the upper layers, the tops of the fills of numerous negative structures were identified: 1) postholes; 2) double postholes; 3) postholes that had been widened following the removal of the post and then used as middens or clay pits; 4) middens and/or clay pits. Excavation of the cavities suggested the existence of two construction phases in the area: the first characterised by the installation of the structures, and the second by the removal of the posts and the use of the area for clay mining. The evidence from the dump and the postholes dates to an advanced phase of the Recent Bronze Age. Therefore, the first occupation of this part of the settlement can be dated to the Recent Bronze Age 2. In the area of quadrants ZA-E 7-8, the removal of the base layers of “structure 1003”, constituted by unbaked and baked silt, showed that the structure was built immediately above the carbonized beams of lattice US 205.

The stratigraphic analysis of a part of the east-west section led to the identification of the levels from the first occupation of the area and clarified the relationships of the two ditches outside the site. In particular, the cut made into natural by ditch 1; the cut made in the fluvial-marsh substratum by the latest ditch and the fill of ditch 1; the layers relating to the creation of the first nucleus of the embankment; the layers relating to the abandonment of the area, characterized by evidence for the existence of a humid environment for a prolonged period – and its fill with alluvial material, were documented. As regards chronology, the entire embankment-ditch system seems to have been constructed within the Recent Bronze Age 2. The survey undertaken in the North Field recovered seven new fragments of Aegean-Mycenean type pottery.