This year, two excavation campaigns took place at the nuraghic sanctuary of Santa Vittoria di Serri (southern Sardinia) with the participation of students from the universities of Cagliari, Oristano and Granada. Interventions took place in the sectors investigated in autumn 2016, the 20th century Taramelli rubbish dumps denominated 2 and 3. In the area of dump 2, the excavations revealed, adjacent to a deep uniform deposit of stones and earth (US 1), the rectilinear facing that was identified last year. The excavation of the adjacent layers showed the rough construction of the wall characterised by a few courses of stones, partially overlying earth deposits, which suggests the structure was recent and probably dates to the last century.
The removal of US 1, adjacent to this wall revealed a series of other apparently short walls that are difficult to interpret due to the overlapping of the collapses and lack of a related occupation layer. Only the deposit US 1 overlying the latter walls and adjacent to the rectilinear “historic” wall was uniform and characterized by a large number of pottery and bone fragments. The level of fragmentation of the pottery, and absence of stratigraphic interruptions suggest this level was coherent with the layer of gravel in the dump, the latter probably deriving from the early 20th century excavations of the adjacent block known as the “Piazzale delle abitazioni”. The level contained pottery and metal fragments dating to the Iron Age (10th-8th century B.C.) as revealed by the previous campaign. The removal of US 1 exposed the presence of undisturbed layers. Although no definite walls were identified, a number of stratigraphic contexts (US 4 and 14) appeared, with only a few pottery fragments that were however well contextualized within the final phase of the Final Bronze Age (12th-10th century B.C.).
This result is important given the presence of charcoal remains, three pieces of which have been radiocarbon dated with absolute dates falling within this period. In July 2017, the excavation was extended to the area of the possible stone quarry. Therefore, it was decided to investigate to the right of the probable quarry to verify a possible relationship with the structures of the village. A possible clue to this relationship was the discovery of a stretch of wall belonging to a nearby hut. The area was therefore divided into two sectors. The first was an area of 36 m2 (6 × 6), the second 42 m2 (6 × 8). The excavation of the two areas revealed the presence of at least two rooms. The first, denominated 57, was circular with an internal diameter of 3.50 m, the other, 58, was elliptical. The investigation of these rooms concluded with the excavation of the surface layers, removal of the collapses, and the topographical survey.