This was the thirty-eighth excavation campaign on the site of the Final Bronze Age settlement of Sorgenti della Nova (Farnese, VT). The research was undertaken by the Centro Studi di Preistoria e Archeologia Onlus di Milano in collaboration with the Soprintendenza Archeologica dell’Etruria Meridionale.

This year, the excavations again concentrated on two sectors, the first Vb, where work has been ongoing for many years, and the other sector XII, only opened relatively recently. Excavation continued in an area opened last year, finally reaching the rocky shoulder uphill. The distance between and the edge of the cut identified in previous years may be compatible with a continuation of the ditch structure. However, lack of time and the massive quantity of terrain that had to be removed meant that for now it has only been possible to explore and remove several layers of collapse and reach the layers formed immediately after the settlement’s abandonment, as attested by the fact that only proto-historic impasto pottery was present. This evidence was enough to suggest the presence of a large buried structure.

Sector XII, situated in the eastern part of the hill, was identified during the final days of the 2008 excavation. In fact, at a point a short distance from sector VIII, south-east of the medieval tower the unusual presence of a surface scatter of impasto pottery was noted.

Exploration of the main room was completed in the previous year. Traces of a baked clay hearth were found on its floor, probably relating to a first occupation phase, later destroyed by the construction of a small channel relating to the building of a structure yet to be identified. This season the sector was extended uphill, where a narrow corridor exiting from the main room seemed to indicate that the hut had another room, abutting the rock shoulder behind, like the dwelling type already seen in sector Ve. In fact, this was a second room, on a slightly different axis to the first, which produced very few finds and no rock-cut structure, as also seen in sector Ve. In the rear room in sector XII there was a layer containing a relatively large amount of material that attested reoccupation in the Etruscan-archaic period, a rare, although not unattested, occurrence in the settlement of Sorgenti della Nova.