The decision to undertake an archaeological excavation on the Forcello site followed the verification of the historical importance of the area and of the wealth of the stratigraphic deposits underneath. Only after some superficial non-invasive probes did the excavation proceed, and was conducted applying the stratigraphic method.
The stratification of the Forcello is extremely complex, since the site was frequented for around 160 years, which produced a rich archaeological deposit made up of successive construction, destruction and reclaim levels. The research conducted by the Università degli Studi di Milano, under the management of Professor Raffaele C. de Marinis, from 1988 to 1993 and from 1998 to date have aimed at a better understanding of the successive settlement phases.
The recurrent orientation of the settlements brought to light, of the set up parallel to the embankment and the main road has led to the hypothesis that the settlement had urban structure based on an orthoganal plan, very similar to that of other centres in the Etruria of the Po Valley, like, for example, Marzabotto, with a perimeter, a road network which subdivided the space into regions (or insulae) dwellings and workshops and other infrastructures. The main problem in reading the stratigraphics of the Forcello, is in the material used to construct buildings. These, in fact, due to the lack of stone material in the surrounding areas, were built with perishable material, which following natural collapse or catastrophic events, suffered enormous degradation, leaving difficult to read evidence in the stratification.
The research, now nearly reaching the virgin soil and therefore the moment of the foundation of the Forcello, has allowed, up to this point, the pinpointing of at least nine settling phases, in some cases specified in varying sub-phases. These tell us, at least for the surveyed area, of the evolution of domestic life and craftwork undertaken, and catastrophic events, which characterised the life of an Etruscan settlement in the 6th and 5th century B.C.
