The fifth excavation campaign carried out by the University of Florence’s department of Etruscology and Italic Antiquities continued work in trench D (Area W) which was extended to the north and west.

The widening of trench D clarified a number of questions about the dating of the site’s occupation phases. The deepening of the trench inside the west gate of the fortifications revealed a stratigraphic sequence relating to the Orientalizing period within which were bucchero fragments with stamped, incised and ‘seed’ motifs, probably the remains of a votive offering or foundation ritual. This evidence made it possible to push back the dating for the construction of the earth embankment surrounding the plateau to the end of the 7th century B.C. After a period of cult use, at the end of the 5th century B.C. an imposing foundation for a double curtain wall was built on the embankment. The standing walls were constructed of unbaked brick and, although their height cannot be reconstructed with any certainty, they do not appear to have been very high.

The remains of unbaked bricks burnt by fire and collapsed on the inside of the fortifications were uncovered along the entire length of wall excavated to date. Pottery fragments, mainly from jars and impasto containers, bowls and oinochoai in well-levigated painted ware of Etrurian-Po valley tradition were found in correspondence with a beaten surface of soil and crushed sandstone. The few fragments of imported pottery were significant for the dating, in particular the bowl of a stemless black glaze Attic cup with stamped decoration, several fragments of an Etruscan Red-figure kylix and small fragments of a painted glaux associated with the handle of a bronze strainer. The finds date to a period between the last years of the 5th century and first decades of the 4th century B.C.

Following this phase, the end of which was attested by clear traces of fire in various parts of the trench, in the 4th century B.C. the defensive wall was rebuilt. The walls were raised in height using a dry-stone technique, probably supported by timber structures, according to a style of military architecture of Celtic origin ( murus gallicus ).

Inside the fortifications, the excavations documented the almost complete disappearance of the internal structures. Sections of wall forming the corner of a building at the centre of the western area and part of its beaten floor surface were identified. However, given the disturbance in the area caused by digging with machines last century and, consequently, the dispersal of the finds all recovered in secondary deposition, the relationship between the remains of this structure and the defensive wall could not be determined.