The 2013 season of research and excavation on Poggio Civitate focused on the Civitate A property zone of the site. Excavation revealed the presence of domestic architecture consisting of relatively light walled structures. At least two phases of construction were revealed, the later phase consisting of rectolinear buildings and traces of earlier structures with apparently curvilinear walls – although further excavation is needed to further clarify these curvilinear features.
The rectolinear structure revealed in Civitate A preserved a floor surface upon which were recovered a number of examples of ceramics with direct parallels with materials excavated on the site’s Piano del Tesoro plateau immediately to the west. These ceramics indicate that the Civitate A rectolinear structures were probably constructed some time around or during the last quarter of the 7th century BCE. In addition to these dateable ceramics, a wide assemblage of cooking wares, simple utilitarian vessels and other domestic equipment was recovered.

Most intriguing of the various materials recovered from the floor and vicinity of this building was a fragment of a ceramic figurine in the form of a stylized human. The function of this figurine in such a domestic space is not entirely clear, but invites comparison to later practices associated with the veneration of Roman household divinities, or Lares .

All excavated materials at Poggio Civitate are published within weeks of the close of the excavation season and can be viewed at the following URL: http://poggiocivitate.classics.umass.edu