An investigation was conducted within the urban necropolis, in an area that occupies the alluvial plain of the river Basento, south of the city. The number of bodies in each burial varies according to the size of the family units and the number of generations in each family. At present it seems that the necropolis fell into disuse during the first decades of of the 3rd century B.C., at exactly the time when a deep economic crisis and drastic fall in the birth rate effected the entire city. One of the most important tomb groups may have belonged to a mother buried with her newborn babies in a limestone sarcophagus and dates to between the end of the 7th century B.C. and the beginning of the 6th century B.C. It is one of the earlist burials at Metaponto and includes artifacts such as pyxises with concentric circle motif, several bronze phiale mesomphalos, kotyli, oenochoi, Corinthian and Laconian aryballos, a balsamario of the insular tradition, shaped like a head with helmet, louterion either with reel-handles or in the form of a human head and an alabastron of Eolian grey impasto. Most of these vessels are of local production. The existence of this tomb along one of the roads leading into the city, and within a cemetery that was still in use in a subsequent period, provides evidence that the extra-urban area had been organized between the end of the 7th century B.C and the beginning of the 6th century B.C. Continuity of occupation is documented by the slightly later deposition of a second burial containing grave goods such as oenochoi and hydria that were probable imports or of the Ionian insular tradition and a Siana type kylix. Another tomb group with a Red-figure hydria similar to those of the Pisticci Painter’s workshop confirms that this area continued in use during the 5th century B.C., a contrast to the widespread lack of similar evidence in the rest of the urban necropolis. (Maria Luisa Nava)