The Fondo Fontanella is a large area of communal land in the locality of Fontanelle situated in the northern outskirts of Soleto. In 1998 the study of the first Messapian curtain wall, situated on the northern edge of the Fondo Fontanella, was completed. In 1999 a trial trench was opened which revealed the presence of residential structures. In 2000 open area excavations began which uncovered a Messapian vestibule house with sloped tile roof, internal courtyard with an opus signinum floor and a room with a flat roof supported by a central post. The walls had footings of blocks of carparo or pietra leccese in a few places, and standing structures of mud brick and wooden posts. One corner of the carparo wall formed a plinth made with small slabs of leccese stone. The rooms were of trapezoidal shape. They abutted a layer of sandy fill, which provided drainage, contained to the east by a substantial conglomeration of _carparo_ and limestone blocks.

A Messapian burial in an “a cassa” tomb of leccese stone slabs with a covering of carparo stone slabs was excavated. It contained, in primary deposition, a male adult in a supine position with related grave goods (Messapian bell-krater decorated with vegetal motifs, Apuilian Red-figure _lekythos_, plain ware single-handled jug). By the feet was another adult, in reduction, with grave goods (black glaze _lekythos_ with reticulate decoration, two-handled plain ware jug with bi-lobe mouth, small two-handled plain ware jug, small single-handled plain ware jug, small terracotta ball, a stone bead, a bone comb and sheep/goat _astragalae_ ). Another secondary deposition with the remains of an adult and three infants/juveniles and related grave goods (head of a terracotta female statuette, black glaze _lekythos_, black glaze _lekythos_ with reticulate decoration, plain ware jug, small plain ware jug, sheep/goat _astragalae_ and fragments of iron fibulae) was found below the cranium of the primary deposition, in a small cavity cut into the sterile clay. Outside the tomb there was a densely packed ossuary, containing the remains of three adults (two male and one female), a juvenile and an infant. They were carefully buried below a covering and laying on a stratum of broken vases and tiles, with a only a small tomb group which included silver diobolus from Taranto. Three bones belonging to these individuals were found inside the tomb, demonstrating the relationship between the burial and the ossuary. The topographical position of the tomb is of particular interest. It was inserted into a triangular space delimited, on one side, by the beaten floor of a courtyard, on the other two sides by the walls of a Messapian house. The tomb abutted the house. The family tomb is incorporated within the domestic space. The complex dates to the period 330-265 B.C.

Excavation of the ossuaries relating to the Messapian burial examined in 2001 was completed and continued on the Messapian houses, defining the spatial organisation of the rooms uncovered in 2000 (cooking stand, housing for furniture, structures for supporting two containers). The roof collapse of another large trapezoidal room was recorded. The beaten surface of stones and broken pottery of the courtyard and the access road to the complex were uncovered. A midden and a hearth of Iapigian date were found beside the road.

Excavations continued on the Messapian residential complex revealing the beaten floors of the third and fourth rooms and identifying numerous foundation walls in squared _carparo_ blocks and a roof collapse. Among these structures part of a beaten floor of crushed tufa of a Iapigian hut came to light. The associated proto-Corinthian pottery dated it to the 7th century B.C. This new data was overshadowed by the discovery of an _ostrakon_, seemingly datable to the 5th century B.C., bearing an incision of the outline of southern Salento showing the position of twelve toponyms of ancient Messapia, among which, in a central position, SOL (that is the abbreviation of the Messapian toponym corresponding to the Latin _Soletum_, now Soleto). This precious find, is of great importance for understanding the cultural dynamics and the Messapians’ auto-definition of their identity in their relationship with Greek civilisation, and is also of importance for the history of cartography in the western world. It has been named the “Soleto map” and is the object of a collective study programme.

The excavation of the Messapian residential complex was completed. It comprised two wings forming an L-shape, the east wing having three rooms was the residential part of the complex, the north wing was used for production activities as attested by a large amount of waste produced by metal working, and probably also for housing animals. The family tomb, with associated ossuary, was inserted into the corner formed by the two wings, in a privileged position. The complex was built on top of a layer of sandy fill contained by an imposing conglomeration of _carparo_ and limestone blocks. This terracing also functioned as drainage and levelling of the slight hill slope. The complex was accessed via a lane, made up of gravel and broken pottery, which divided into two, the first branch leading to the residential wing and the other to the production wing. The residential part was entered through a small open-air courtyard leading to a vestibule followed by a small portico closed by shutters. The vestibule and portico were covered with a single sloped roof, found collapsed in front of the threshold, in the portico. The rooms were trapezoidal in plan. It was possible to enter the living quarters from the small courtyard. The walls had a footing of carparo and leccese stone blocks, the standing structures were in mud brick and timber posts. The flat tile roof rested on a wooden frame and central post. A corner of the carparo wall formed a plinth with small slabs of leccese stone, which may suggest the inner face of the walls had some sort of facing. Two semicircles of small stones at the foot of the north wall supported containers. In the north-eastern corner the impasto cooking stands were found in front of an outcrop of smoothed rock, on which live coals were probably placed. Along the south wall, there was a hollow in the crushed tufa and carparo beaten floor, the housing for a piece of furniture. Fragments of table ware pottery were also found. This room may have also been used for entertaining guests. From the portico it was possible to enter another room with a beaten tufa floor and flat tile roof, open towards the private part of the house. Among the finds loom weights and sheep astragalus bones which would seem to suggest the female and infant spheres. This room was used for family activities. The productive wing had three rooms roofed with perishable materials: a service room with a beaten floor of crushed _carparo_; a large room circa 15 m long and over 5 m wide, without a beaten floor surface but completely free of stones, perhaps a stable for horses; a smaller room in a bad state of preservation. The production wing was completed by a room with a tile roof which may have been a “shop”, that is, where those wishing to buy local products were received. At present the complex has been dated to between the second half of the 4th and the 3rd century B.C. In the levels below the Messapian building, seven post holes and a terracotta wall tile belonging to a Iapigian hut came to light. The hut, oval in plan and circa 12 m long, was datable to between the end of the 8th and beginning of the 7th century B.C. Its beaten tufa floor directly overlay the bedrock. Where there were slight hollows in the rock the floor rested on a thin fill. An outcrop had been used as a base for the western end of the hut. The remains of stone footings for the internal walls of the hut were uncovered. A hearth came to light in a shallow hollow on the south side of the hut wall. A few fragments of proto-Corinthian pottery were recovered. At the far eastern end of the productive wing of the Messapian house the foundations for a watch tower with a double terrace came to light. Dry-stone built it comprised a small room with a threshold at the entrance, covered by a pseudo-vault and a terrace presumably situated at a height of circa 3 m. This structure was surrounded, to the south and east, by a curvilinear make up incorporating a _carparo_ block, which may be interpreted as the base for the stairway leading to the terrace. The building was completed to the north-east by a solid square tower, circa 2 x 2 m, with foundations of limestone boulders. It was probably 5 m high. Therefore, part of the productive wing was voluntarily sacrificed to the construction of the tower, which rested on the eastern end and abutted the north wall of the residential wing. The archaeological material collected in the building’s foundation trench included fragments of 3rd century B.C. local pottery. Situated at circa 5 m inside the earlier Messapian curtain wall, demolished following the Roman conquest in 266 B.C., the tower was built to partially replace the fortification guaranteeing the visual control of the water source at the Fontanelle and of the Oliveto plain to the north. The construction of such a building, unthinkable under the Roman dominion, must have occurred after the battle of Cannae (218 a.C.), when the Sallentini sided with Hannibal (cf. LIVY XXII, 61, 12 regarding the Uzentini; LIVY XXV, 1, 1 on the other defections in the Salento in 213 B.C.). This hypothesis appears to be confirmed by the fact that the site was abandoned a few years later. In fact, the excavation of Fondo Fontanella has produced no pottery of 2nd century B.C. date. The end of the Second Punic War, in 209 B.C., thus seems to have sealed the fate of Soleto, by then _Soletum desertum_.

Several trenches were opened with the aim of studying the construction techniques of the Messapian residential complex. The majority of its foundations were in direct contact with rock outcrops or the sterile clay layer. Part of the rooms on the northern side rested on a substantial fill that levelled the hill slope.