The excavation continued of a large Roman villa rustica, identified in 2006. Situated in an area dominated to the north by mount Volturino and flanked to the east by the La Molinara torrent, tributary of the river Agri, the villa was occupied in alternating phases from the Gracchan period until the late Middle Ages, with sporadic occupation during the 4th and 3rd century B.C.

The only surviving evidence for the late Republican period was constituted by two dry-stone walls.

Monumentalised during the Augustan-early Imperial period, its alignment was altered and a different construction technique used. The building was arranged around a large central courtyard onto which three service rooms and a probable production area opened. Of the three northern rooms, the central quadrangular one (23 m2) was flanked by two smaller rooms (11 and 12 m2). The southern part of the excavation area was occupied, in this phase, by a large space that was either open or had a light covering, in which there were two drainage channels, one with a central settling sump and terminating with an imbrex for draining liquid, probably into wooden tubs The channels were connected to two sub-rectangular structures, probably the bases of two olive presses. This phase was very probably interrupted by an earthquake, also attested in the nearby city of Grumentum.

In the second century A.D. the villa’s spaces were reorganised. The fulcrum of the complex remained the central courtyard, which became a peristyle surrounded by a portico. The three rooms north of the courtyard were substituted by a single space, paved with large tiles which obliterated the collapses and internal dividing walls from the earlier phase.

The villa’s pars fructuaria was situated to the west. It had a central entrance with two pairs of symmetrical rooms on either side, and was probably the residence of the vilicus. The entrance was monumentalised with a half-column made of rows of semicircular bricks, alternating with layers of whitish mortar. Some of the bricks were found, still joined, among the collapse of the west side of the portico. Based on the position of the pilaster and the way it fell, it is suggested that its collapse was caused by another earthquake, which occurred at a distance of about a century from the previous one. The same event probably caused the death of an adult male, found in one of the rooms of the pars rustica below a roof collapse and lying on a floor surface. The skeleton was on its side, with the lower limbs bent and one of the arms raised towards the head as if to protect it, which together with the stratigraphic position, indicates that this was not an intentional burial.

A bronze seal was found on the floor below the collapse, close to the pilaster. It was half-moon shaped and inscribed MODERATI AUG N(ostri), attesting that this complex was an imperial property.

The final occupation phase dated to between the 3rd and 4th century A.D. This phase was attested by the burials of two infants, placed in a supine position on a surface created from tile fragments, overlying the latest collapse of the courtyard. A rectangular room (25 m2) overlying the 4th century A.D. collapses also dated to this phase. It partially reused the earlier walls and had two new dry-stone walls.