During the previous campaigns, excavations in the area below the monolith revealed traces of a settlement (a hut, denominated structure A) and a substantial scatter of lithic instruments below terrace 3B.

The 2017 campaign, after securing the monolith, began by cleaning of the slope below terrace 3B, where it is not possible to reach any useful stratigraphy because of solifluction. The aim was rather to look for any finds and significant elements that had slipped down the slope. A grid was laid out across the zone below terrace 3 and above terrace 4, denominated zone C. The zone was divided into 5 m squares, denominated 1C, 2C etc. from south to north. The area was cleaned and all removed soil sieved, which resulted in the recovery of hundreds of flint elements, including 113 tools and significant pieces that were catalogued; a serpentinite axe; hundreds of proto-historic pottery fragments, mainly very small and abraded, including 33 important catalogued pieces; hundreds of animal bone fragments; a few metal fragments.

Work also continued along the wall of the former motor-cross track. During the last campaign, three parts of a section was cleaned that was stratigrapically very important for the history of settlement of the hill on which the Omo monolith stands (see 2016 report). This year’s intervention was primarily undertaken in order to clean the previously identified anthropic layer, corresponding with the most important phase of prehistoric occupation on the hill (US 3=occupation layer rich in charcoal, pottery and bone fragments, flint, shells, very rich in organic material in a matrix with a plastic consistency). This made it possible to collect samples that will undergo anthracological, palinological and palaeo archaeo-botanical analyses in order to reconstruct the environment that characterised the hill area of the site through time.

Most of the work during the 2017 campaign took place in the locality of Pelade, situated beyond the road just north of the monolith, at 653 m a.s.l. A survey and two sondages were carried out in the area in 2016. In 2017, excavation continued in trench A opened at the north-eastern corner of the curtain wall that encloses a sort of quadrilateral of c. 2500 m2, and a new trench was opened about ten metres south of the structure identified in trench A. A second structure was identified here, probably a look-out tower, called structure B; structure A may be considered a refuge/control structure in the north-east corner. Fragments of glazed pottery were found here, however it is suggested that the curtain wall predates this structure, which was perhaps associated with an early medieval occupation phase. This has yet to be identified in the locality of Pelade, but was responsible for the creation of the terraces present on the slope downhill from the monolith, datable thanks to several very worn coins found within them, to the late antique period.