Villa Carnevale is situated north-east of the town of San Cesario, beside the Lecce-Zollino railway line, about 3 km south of Lecce. Following the discovery of large slab of pietra leccese during agricultural work, a small excavation was undertaken in order to determine its use. A tomb was uncovered constituted by a sub-circular earth grave with a maximum width of 1.30 m. Its sides tapered towards the bottom and the floor was almost flat. The skeleton was in a foetal position on the grave floor. In the space between the cranium and the knees were several vases placed one inside another: a small jug-dipper was inside an Ionic cup-type B2 and this was placed on the rim of a Messapian crater with ‘mushroom’ handles. These artefacts date the grave to the third quarter of the 6th century B.C. Further stratigraphic investigations were undertaken in 2004. An intense agricultural use of the area from the Messapian period until the modern period was documented. The most recent signs were plough-furrows and a pit filled with a dump of pottery fragments, food remains and iron objects. A number of rectangular ditches placed at regular intervals and in groups of 5 or 6, identified as planting trenches, were also noted. Earlier elements (6th century B.C.) were represented by shallow, rock-cut drainage channels, their orientation following the natural slope of the terrain. A large land reclamation ditch was also identified. Dug in the Messapian period (3rd century B.C.) it was filled in the Republican period. The find of several fragments from a statue of Hercules made in local limestone was of particular importance.