Levelling undertaken by the Acquedotto Pugliese for the construction of a cistern has damaged the complex stratigraphy of the site which runs from the Neolithic to the late antique period. Trenches have revealed the presence of a Neolithic village and a large Roman villa. Large column bases and thresholds have been recovered from the Roman villa. A preliminary hypothesis sites the pars rustica in the area of the plateau that slopes away to the north, a theory which seems to be confirmed by the discovery, in situ, of two large dolia that had been mended in antiquity. Further evidence of productive activities (millstones, locally produced flat-bottomed anforette) suggest that the villa's economy was based on the production and processing of cereals, grapes and oil. The finds indicate occupation from the late Hellenistic to the late antique period. A large room with an apse, part of the residential quarters, belongs to this last phase. Below the villa structures lay a Neolithic village which extended across the entire plateau, arranged in nuclei of huts with open spaces in between. The lowest levels in the huts constituted a layer of cobbles within which post-holes and baked-clay for the internal pavement were conserved. The finds indicate that occupation of the village began in the early Neolithic period. The presence of impressed pottery with everted rims and fragments of 'Diana' type pottery attests that occupation continued until the Enolithic period. Evidence for Bronze Age occupation is provided by 'Appennine' type material datable to the mid Bronze Age. (Maria Luisa Nava)

Excavations have brought to light an imposing villa rustica, the history of which can be divided into four phases. The villa (1st century B.C.-2nd century A.D.) lies beneath a rich apsidal structure dating to the late antique period (4th-5th centuries A.D.) Phase I is represented by two separate but contemporary buildings. The first comprises a series of rooms paved in mortar mixed with cocciopesto, containing rectangular and circular tanks faced wth waterproof mortar and paved in opus spicatum. Three large, interred dolia were found within these rooms. A subsequent phase is indicated by the addition of an opus spicatum floor in one of these rooms. In phase III this floor is covered with a new layer of cocciopesto. In both phases the circular press-beds for oil presses and stone bases for wine presses are visible. The final phase saw the extension of the main building and the addition of a large open area. Two small pits were found within this area, they may perhaps be linked to finds indicating metal working, a crucible and fragments of iron slag. In this phase, the floors inside the main building are demolished; an apse is added to one room and partition walls are put in to create three new rooms with brick pilasters and column bases on the same alignment as the apse. The earliest pottery recovered includes fragments of Neolithic and Bronze Age material, dating to between the 6th- 4th centuries B.C. In the abandonment layers a Byzantine capital, probably dating to the period of the Gothic War, came to light. This belonged to the building which post-dates the villa rustica, but of which, it seems at present, no traces of the structure survive. (Maria Luisa Nava)