This was Bologna University’s 19th campaign of excavations on the site of the so-called “Palazzo” of Theodoric in the locality of Poderina (Galeata – FC), and the second year of a collaboration with Parma University.

The main aim was to check the presence and nature of any archaeological deposit in two areas adjacent to the Podere Alpestri 2 through which the new variant to the line of the via del Pantano is due to pass, according to what has been established by the local planning office, and identify the area of the future archaeological park. Two trenches were excavated: 52 and 53.
The 2016 excavations produced new and important data regarding the nature of the large warehouse, whose southern and western edges were partially identified in 2015. The structure has a rectangular plan on a SW-NE alignment and half of it extends underneath the new line of the via del Pantano. This was a complex of considerable size, probably used for the production and storage of dry foodstuffs, although the bad state of preservation of the internal spaces and the limited excavations make it difficult to define the function of the spaces any more precisely. Unlike the large warehouse situated further west, the interior of building 1 does not appear to be divided into a series of connecting rooms by partition walls. However, it cannot be excluded that a dividing wall is situated precisely below the line of the gas pipeline cutting the building from east to west. The western perimeter wall, uncovered for a total of 12 m, presents half pilasters 4-5 m apart that served to sustain the load of the heavy timber and tile roof and of the thick walls, of which no traces survive as they were completely robbed-out in antiquity.
The excavations and study of the material finds show that the architectural complex was built in the very early Augustan period and was abandoned, robbed and obliterated no later than the 2nd-3rd century A.D. The poor state of preservation of the walls, whose building materials were removed even at foundation level, and the complete lack of roof collapse are clear signs of an intense operation of robbing and the reuse of building materials from this structure. It may be suggested that the Augustan warehouse, probably already partially abandoned in the 2nd century A.D., was completely demolished and dismantled in order to reuse the materials for the construction of an extension to the large warehouse situated in the productive sector of the Roman villa. It is possible that atin a certain phase of the villa’s life, it was decided to concentrate the spaces for production and storage of agricultural products on the highest part of the plateau abandoning the area of the earlier Augustan warehouse (building 1) whose robbed structures were voluntarily levelled and obliterated.

This season’s excavations also led to the identification of part of two walls and a large pit certainly datable to a period post-dating the abandonment and robbing of the large warehouse but whose function remains hypothetical and chronology remains relative, given the reduced size of the excavation area and limited study of the finds.