This season’s excavations continued the work begun in 2013 in the sector of the urban area of Carsulae situated midway between the forum area and the Arch of San Damiano, to date unexplored. The work of the preceding three years uncovered: 33 metres of a late Republican basalt road, beside a large dolina; a paving measuring 5 × 6 m of Augustan date abutting the road to the south-east; three rooms of Augustan date to the side of the road; a small paved area in front of the entrance to room C; a substantial dump of materials immediately downhill (to the south) on top of the Augustan paving inside the dolina.

The 2016 excavations concentrated on three fronts:

1. A 5 × 5 m trench was opened downhill from the paved surface in order to explore the previously identified dump. The excavation confirmed the existence of the dump that was formed by at least four deposits of material (UUSS 3073, 3076, 3082, and 3083) all of the same date, the result of wide-ranging work undertaken to reorganise the urban layout above. This involved the cleaning of ground surface (UUSS 3076, 3082, and 3083, containing large amounts of materials, mainly pottery) and the levellings of the natural bank, which produced a very large quantity of earth mixed with travertine fragments (US 3073, which sealed the underlying layers). The preliminary studies of some classes of materials made it possible to date the dump to between the last decade of the 1st century B.C. and the first decade of the 1st century A.D. It appears likely that it was created in order to raise the ground level (that sloped notably towards the centre of the dolina) to the level of the small paved area in front of room C.

2. The excavation of room C was completed by removing the remaining fill relating to the area’s abandonment phase. The excavation revealed that in the second half of the 4th century A.D. all of the paving was removed. The Republican cut in the travertine bedrock on which all the structures were built was also exposed. The only interesting data that emerged from this investigation was the confirmation of how, from the late 4th century A.D., the area was abandoned and the structures dismantled in order to reuse the construction materials. The accumulation of materials carried by hill wash began in this phase.

3. A small trench was opened on the eastern edge of the excavation area in order to check the continuity of the structure. Immediately below the turf, there was a wall on an east-west alignment, probably in phase with the front of rooms A, B, and C, and of a floor surface made of limestone basoli abutted by a later stone paving. A smooth column drum, 1.5 m long and 50 cm in diameter lay abutting the wall on top of the stone paving, probably where it was abandoned by those robbing building materials.