A contribution to the chronology of the Etruscan city of Gonfienti (Prato, Tuscany)

Abstract Gonfienti old city (near Prato, Tuscany, Central Italy) was positioned on an alluvial fan at the southern termination of the road connecting the Arno valley with the Etruria centers of the Po Valley, North of the Apennines. During Etruscan period, Gonfienti was an important commercial settlement on the road system connecting the Tyrrhenian area on one side and the Po Valley on the other. The archeological studies conducted following 1997 in the Gonfienti area highlighted the presence of a large settlement of more than 27 hectares, which has been affected and adapted over the centuries to the hydrographic regime defined by Calvana and Bisenzio rivers. Archaeomagnetic directional analyses of two furnaces and one oven found in the Etruscan settlements of Carraia, along the cutting the Calvana relief road, and Gonfienti Etruscan settlement, resulted in an age spanning during the fourth century BC for the oven positioned inside the “Interporto” area of Gonfienti. This age agrees with the last Etruscan phase of occupation of the city of Gonfienti, started in the fourth century BC after a period of abandonment occurred by the end of the fifth century BC, which was probably induced by a disastrous climate change. Graphic abstract