In 2003, a series of annual research campaigns began involving the territory, settlement, and necropolises of ancient Aufinium.
The earliest grave goods, dating to the Early Iron Age, were concentrated in the locality of Vatormina. This nucleus is the nearest to Colle Sant’Antonio, and it is possible that the Fossa type iron short sword, the bronze serpent bow fibula with disc catch-plate, and the two small impasto jars confiscated from Demetrio Matteucci in 1939-40 may have come from here. This nucleus was continually in use until at least the 2nd century B.C.
The necropolis seems to have expanded between the 7th and 6th century B.C. Indeed, in this period there were graves in many points of the plain below the hill on which the settlement stood. The most significant groups investigated are those of Fossa Scopana, Via dell’Olmo and Capo D’Acqua.
The nucleus of Fossa Scopano or Cenericcio was excavated in the 1930s by Annibaldi. These early excavations were followed in the 1970s by those of Parise-Badoni and by the research undertaken in 2003-2010 by D’Ercole, which led to the discovery of about 350 burials.
In 2009, the University of Chieti excavated the area alongside the farm track in order to uncover the ancient road, partially exposed in 2003, and to open a sondage that would topographically link the 1930s excavations with the later ones. During this excavation, the tombs from the latest phase of the necropolis were uncovered; two chamber tombs and cremation burials datable to between the 1st century B.C. and the 2nd century A.D. The Via dell’Omo nucleus was discovered in 2011 and led to the identification of eight burials, while in the area of Capo d’Acqua, rescue excavations undertaken during the construction of a sewer uncovered seventeen graves with archaic grave goods; three burials had been discovered in the 1960s, and one was excavated by Usai in 1992.
Obviously, the three nuclei mentioned above were part of a large cemetery area covering just over 40 hectares and which probably included sacred areas as well as a secondary road network. The remains of these secondary roads crossing the Aufinium plain have been intercepted several times during excavations.

The south road was identified by Annibaldi in the 1930s and later by Bianchi Bandinelli and Ferri during a survey in the 1960s.
Another road situated further north is clearly visible from the town of Colle Sant’Antonino towards Capo d’Acqua.

The data regarding the burial groups situated south-west of the river Tirino comes from recent research in 2010-2011 and attests the existence of a large “southern” necropolis, south of the Tirino, organised in at least two sectors: east and west of the Fonti di Presciano.
In the Italic-Hellenistic phase, 4th-2nd century B.C., “a grotticella” tombs were widely used at Capestrano, a characteristic that makes the territory of Aufinium culturally similar to the Peligna area.

The use of imbrices to form infant burials is also well-attested at Capestrano. The presence of niches for jars and skyphoi in the long walls of the graves is also moderately diffuse in the territory of the Vestini Transmontani in the Italic-Hellenistic period. The use of funerary beds faced with bone was also a funerary custom of the Vestini in the 2nd – 1st century B.C.