Santa Cristina in Caio (Buonconvento - SI): la campagna di scavo 2013

During the first four excavation campaigns (2009-2012), we investigated a thermal complex in use between the end of the 1st century BC and the mid-4th c. AD, with important phases of reuse, at first productive and then for dwelling, between the beginning of the 5th c. and the 8th c. In 2013 the investigation has been focused on a hill called Poggio alle Fonti, located immediately southwards of the previous excavations, where we opened two new excavation areas. The first one is marked by the presence of some badly preserved walls and an extremely poor horizontal stratigraphy, probably due to heavy modern agricultural exploitations. Within these walls, generally dating from the Imperial Age to the mid-6th c. AD (there is also an earthen wall, typical building technique of this period on our site) some kind of metallurgic activities took certainly place, given the strong presence of slags and other indicators. Although the stratigraphic evidence does not allow us to advance more precise assumptions, a first observation of pottery suggests a chronology generically set between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. The second area, intercepted a necropolis already partially excavated by the Tuscan Soprintendenza between 1992 and 1994. Twenty-six burials have so far been dug, dating between the end of the 1st and the 4th c. AD and all without any grave goods. The part of the cemetery we have investigated seems to change function by the mid-5th c., when an earthen wall (whose function is currently not clear) cuts some burials. Towards the western limit of the area, the dump of a furnace producing thin- walled pottery was identified; the presence of the furnace had already been recognized by surface surveys.