During work on the new high speed railway line (TAV), substantial occupation traces relating to various periods were found in the area of the “Botteghelle” viaduct. Between the 1st century A.D. and the late antique period the zone was crossed by a road. The remains of a sanctuary (4th-3rd century B.C.) were discovered beside the road cut into the hillside in the 3rd century B.C. The earliest phase was characterized by an open area with a well and a number of pits. The fills produced numerous black glaze cups, _ungentaria_, fragments of terracottas and statuettes dating to the second half of the 4th century B.C. The sanctuary’s second phase was distinguished by the building of a structure in tufa blocks, perhaps a portico, delimiting an open area into which tanks, bordered by tiles placed edgeways on, were sunk. A large amount of pottery, including a cup bearing two incised letters, and coins dated to this period (4th century B.C.). In the third phase the courtyard was paved with _opus signinum_, while many fragments from terracottas and of black glaze pottery were recovered from a number of pits. In the last phase, towards the middle of the 3rd century B.C., the building continued to preserve its sacred function. In this phase the portico was replaced by closed room. An ancient ground surface cultivated with parallel furrows, obliterated by the “Flegrean B” eruption, produced a notable amount of archaeological, ceramic and stone material. This was datable to the mid-late Neolithic period and related to the Serra d’Alto-Diana facies (IV millennium B.C.). The ceramic assemblage was characterised by reel handles, depurated impasto bowls, coarse banded painted ware, ribbon handles with zoomorphic applications representing domestic animals (pigs) and simple spiral appendages. Stone working was attested by a large number of complete flint, obsidian and jasper implements.

Archaeological investigations continued in the area of the “Botteghelle” viaduct. Close to the sanctuary, dating to the between the end of the 4th and the end of the 3rd century B.C., a ditch over 15 m wide and over 6 m deep was discovered. Of difficult interpretation (drainage channel or collection of spring water?), it cut a natural depression. At a right angle to it there was a beaten earth road, made during the 3rd century B.C. Large squared tufa blocks and brick fragments came out of the channel, material probably relating to the destruction of the sanctuary, as well as coarse wares and black glaze pottery which dated the obliteration of the structure to between the 3rd-2nd century B.C. As regards the Neolithic phase, the identification, both on the surface and within the ancient ground level below the “Flegrean B2” eruption, of the remains of intersecting plough furrows suggests that the agricultural use of this area was continuous. The zone must have been on the edge of a village whose inhabitants dumped their refuse here. The remains of the first phases of this settlement were also found. Once the ancient plough soil was removed, below a layer of earth mixed with material from the Mercato (7900 B.P., 6th millennium B.C.) eruption of Vesuvius, a floor was revealed constituted by the ashes from this eruption. Within the floor surface were four hundred post holes, numerous pits and ditches, six hearths in pits and a curved channel forming the housing for the foundations of a wooden enclosure, of which traces of the entrance were visible. The settlement must have had a long life, with various alterations to the wooden structures, so much so that the proximity of so many post holes made it impossible to identify with any certainty the shape of the huts. The large quantity of pottery and evidence for stone working attested that, in this earliest phase also, the _facies_ was that of Serra d’Alto-Diana (4th millennium B.C.).