A Bronze Age structure dug into a tufa bank was investigated. Aligned on a NW-SE axis, it is 14.50m long and between 2 and 4m wide. The structure was composed of a long dromos with dry-stone walls, built with large limestone blocks and small wedges, and a beaten earth floor. The dromos lead to a small sub-rectangular anti-chamber and the main, sub-oval chamber with benches around its walls. Halfway along its right hand wall was the entrance to a second, sub-circular chamber.
The chambers contained evidence of various ritual activities which can be linked to cult-funerary practices. The initial rite, attested by the deposition of a large mammal’s rib within an arrangement of stones on the chamber floor, was a propitiary fertility rite for the consacration of the structure. The presence in the overlying layers of numerous hearths containing the remains of the bones from mature animals (bos, sheep-goat, pig) attests ritual banqueting.
Milk boilers and numerous cups suggest that libations were made using milk.
The ritual levels are sealed by the inhumation of a female (aged 20-23 years). The tomb group comprised a stud in bronze lamina with embossed, dotted decoration and a miniature impasto cup. The numerous accumulations of ash and charcoal from the hearths present throughout the structure are the result of ritual practices.
The material recovered included carinated cups with ribbon handles with out-turned points and/or a double handle below and rounded base, what are probably truncated-cone shaped bowls, situliform containers, jars, small jars with applied cordon decoration (either notched or impressed), bone needles or large pins, a spindle whorl and various splinters from flint working. The pottery typology places this structure within the early Proto-Appenine B culture. (Maria Luisa Nava)