Furfo (Barisciano, AQ). La campagna di indagini 2024 del Furfo Project

The Furfo Project, launched in 2023, is an interdisciplinary and international research collaboration between the Soprintendenza ABAP AQ-TE, l’Università dell’Aquila – Dipartimento di Scienze Umane, the British School at Rome and the Comune di Barisciano which focuses on the vicus of Furfo and its territory. The first season of research involved an intensive fieldwalking campaign of the plateau, together with geophysical prospection in the area close to the ruins of the church of Santa Maria di Farfona. Guided by these initial findings, a second season in September 2024 saw the extension of the geophysical prospection, as well as a small excavation targeting features recorded the previous non-invasive surveys. The excavation has brought to light a long and complex chronological sequence, with the earliest recovered material dating to the neolithic period, as well as features belonging to a possible ancient-mid-Bronze Age settlement, itself disturbed by the later Roman vicus.