During building work for an industrial complex in the periphery of Quartucciu a necropolis was brought to light by chance in 2000. Successive annual campaigns have permitted the discovery of over 200 tombs, distributed over a long period. Only a dozen burials can be attributed to the earliest Punic period (IVth C. b.C.), while the majority date from the middle of the third century b. C. to the middle of the fifth century A.D.

The tombs, for whose form there are no exact parallels, consist of deep rectangular trenches with one or two niches on each of the long sides, closed by imbrices placed on edge. The trenches were backfilled with the earth deriving from their excavation. Grave groups are numerous, and show variable compositions of remarkably intact material. These include small pitchers, plates, lamps, glass vessels, and personal ornaments.

Often lamps and glasses are contained in one of the plates, a composition that can be repeated several times within a single burial. The frequent presence of coins allows us to date fairly accurately the moment of the deposition, and furnishes exceptional evidence for the dating of the materials, particularly the lamps, the italic and African sigillata, and the ribbed jugs of local production. In turn, this allows us to reconstruct reliable sequences for a number of different local productions.