Two trenches running parallel to the line of a gas pipeline were opened at Serra del Cedro in order to intercept the continuation of the walls seen in 1986 during a rescue excavation when the gas pipes were laid. There were no traces of structures in the first trench (a), 10 x 1.5 m. The second (b), on the same alignment but 11 m downhill, revealed evidence of a tomb and the wall of a house, which document the two phases of this part of the site’s use. Tomb SDC 1-2015, datable to the second half of the 6th century B.C., is a grave measuring c. 1.90 x 0.90 m, cut into the conglomerate of rounded clasts (pudding-stone) that forms the subsurface of the hill. The skeleton was that of a young adult male, lying in foetal position, arms crossed, on his right side. The tomb group was made up of iron weapons (knife, javelin and lance heads) and nine vases, including an Ionian B2 cup. At four metres to the east of this burial, the natural conglomerate had been cut to form a level platform downhill for the construction of a house, datable to the 4th-early 3rd century B.C. A geophysical survey was carried out at Serra del Cedro in 2014 and a field-walking survey was undertaken on the site’s easternmost hill. The aim was to create the most objective maps possible of the distribution of brick/tile, without extrapolations, geo-localising every fragment using GPS and inserting the data into a GIS. One of the principal results was the identification of a dense concentration on the southern part of the hill: 3357 tile fragments over a surface of c. 2,500 m2. The ceramic material can be dated to the 4th-3rd century B.C.

House _alpha_ at Serra del Cedro, discovered in 2016, is a typical basic _pastas_ house. The original layout was very simple: a rectangle 11.27 x 19.50m. The house was divided lengthwise in two parts of the same width by a substantial partition wall. The eastern half of the house was not divided further. It was one long room, the _pastas_, with a wide opening to the exterior formed by a threshold of small sandstone blocks, placed almost at the centre of the facade. The impression of a column was visible on the central slab. The column’s Doric capital was found two metres away from the centre of the stylobate. Three rooms opened onto the _pastas_. The central and south rooms were more or less the same size, with wide entrances that were slightly off-centre. The north-west room was almost square, and its doorway was completely off-centre. The great simplicity of the original plan was perfectly legible despite the additions in front of the east facade. The construction of the house can be dated to within the second half of the 4th century B.C. For the moment, a single fragment of a black glaze cup with an overhanging rim, found above the house, could take the date for the destruction of the house back to the second half, or even the last quarter of the 3rd century B.C. Surface survey continued on the eastern hill of Serra del Cedro, and traces of the site’s fortifications were looked for. The investigations made use of an analysis of the Lidar data that revealed strong linear anomalies around the site. The most useful results relate to the southern hillside: four parallelepiped blocks in a fallen position, two of which bearing quarry marks, and above all a section of wall still _in_ _situ_. A trench was opened here that revealed the external facing and part of the _emplekton_.

As part of the research programme _”Ignobilia_ _oppida_ _Lucanorum”_ promoted by the Ecole Française in Rome in collaboration with the Archaeological Superintendency of Basilicata, a fourth excavation campaign took place on the site of Serra del Cedro. Work concentrated on the large _pastas_ house “alpha” (11.50 x 19.80 m), discovered in 2016. The excavation, begun last year, of the large _pastas_ house occupying the entire eastern part of the house (18.01 x 4.53 m = 81.5 m2), was completed. Of note the almost total absence of tiles and imbrices and, more generally, the scarcity of the finds. The three rooms to the rear were half-excavated in order to obtain a stratigraphic north-south section 15.60 m long, of which an orthophoto was taken. The walls and floor surfaces lay below an average of 1 .50 m of material in room 2 (north) , but the fill in room 4 (south) was only 55-56 cm deep due to the sloping terrain. The actual archaeological stratigraphy only began in correspondence with the wall crests. Their preserved height varied between 32 cm (wall 164 between room 3 and 4) and 50 cm (wall 163, between rooms 2 and 3; the latter was 55-60 cm wide and presented three courses of sandstone and limestone blocks, with reused elements, in particular a fragment from the bowl of a _louterion_. In 2017, rooms 2 and 4 were partially explored, while the excavation of the large rectangular central space, ? x 4.60 m, was postponed. In rooms 2 and 4, the floor level was only reached in two small trenches. In room 2, to the north, the trench was a 2.20 m square. Layer 185 overlay the geological substratum of pudding-stone, which had been levelled to form the floor surface. Occasional tile and imbrices fragments lay directly on top of the pudding-stone. There were abundant finds including a fragmented but almost complete small ribbed _olpe_ in ‘ceramica sovradipinta’. Several black glaze ware forms were also found: a small plate with a Z-shaped profile, the rim of a _lekane_, at least two small low concave-convex cups, several_skyphoi_, a fragment from _kylix_ with vertical handles, probably of Daunian production with an offset on the inner surface of the bowl, Morel type 4221, datable to about the mid or second half of the 4th century B.C. (a new form for Civita di Tricarico). A few fragments of what may be grey ware were recovered but this remains to be verified. There were over 300 fragments of coarse wares, but less than 30 of cooking wares. In addition, 6 loom weights were found, 5 truncated pyramid shaped (one stamped with a six-point star in a circle) and one truncated cone shaped. Bone fragments, teeth and two jaw fragments were also present. It is interesting to note that the walls rested on the pudding-stone, but were raised (by 17-18 cm) with respect to the floor surface, which was excavated and levelled after the walls were built. This probably prevented humidity from rising into the earth bonding in the walls, in particular when the floor was washed. In 2015, a similar solution was also identified in another building in trench 4. To date a trench measuring 4.70 x 2.30 m has been excavated in Room 4. The collapse of tiles and imbrices was relatively dense. Eight joining fragments of a large terracotta basin (reconstructed diameter 59.5 cm), only 8 cm deep and with thick walls (over 2 cm) were found abutting the north jamb of the wide entrance (c. 1.60 m) to the room. This basin allowed whoever entered to wash.

This was the third year of excavation in house _alpha_. In 2017, the building was partially excavated: the entire _pastas_ and part of rooms 2, 3, and 4, situated west of it, and room 5 to the east. In 2018, the exploration was extended to form an open area excavation that included the entire house and the extensive terrace to the east. The west and south perimeter walls were completely exposed, showing that the west wall partly rested on the bedrock that emerged to the west of the house. The excavation of room 2 continued, reaching the bedrock, which had been cut, in the eastern half of the room. The cut was horizontal in the southern part and sloping in the northern part of the room, at a level 20 cm higher than the stylobate. The bedrock itself was cut to form the footings on which walls 163, 145, and 144 rested. The fill was constituted by a substantial, uniform abandonment layer, which among other things contained a small weight and a pin, both bronze. In room 4, the level of collapsed tiles was completely exposed. About 40 cm thick, it contained fragments of tiles and imbrices, pieces of a mortarium decorated with a Greek key pattern (a fragment of which was used in the upper level of wall 164), and large stone blocks in a superficial position that had fallen from wall 161. On the eastside, layer 197, which covered wall 167, was removed. The wall continued to the east for 9.20 m and functioned as a containing wall for the large terrace from which house _alpha_ was entered. The terrace sloped, in fact wall 167 stopped at a level 1.32 m lower than the stylobate marking the entrance to the_pastas_. On the terrace, a wall (170) ran parallel to the long side of house _alpha_, until it terminated. It may have been part of an earlier structure or building annexed to the house. Another structure annexed to the house was constituted by room 6, which was excavated as far as a trench for a gas pipeline that had destroyed its northern half. Below a layer of collapse formed by large imbrices, some intact, there was an _opus_ _spicatum_ floor surface, whose edge was marked by a tile placed horizontally along wall 148. A survey was undertaken in 2018 that identified, on the north side, immediately behind the summit, some sections of the curtain wall built of large limestone blocks. This was probably a structure earlier than the sandstone wall, which perhaps only enclosed the necropolis. Further east, there was another section of curtain wall, recently bulldozed, with a corner bastion.