The site of S. Giovanni is situated at the eastern end of the coastal plain of the same name. This season’s excavations continued the investigation of the pars rustica of the Villa delle Grotte, which began last year. The results can be synthesised as follows:

The area in which the five dolia defossa were situated (Room III) must have been roofed rather than being open-air, as attested by the large quantity of carpentry nails found. Among other things, the identification of five square stone plinths at the edges of the area suggests the existence of a covered courtyard that opened to the north. Here, access to the dolia was probably provided by raised timber planks that rested on the building’s perimeter walls. The floors were made of opus signinum with inserts of limestone tesserae.

The hypothesis suggesting the building situated in area 1 had only one construction phase appears to be confirmed. If its construction can be dated to around 100 B.C., perhaps two decades earlier, the date of the building’s destruction is rather more controversial. The earlier hypothesis, that dated it to around the mid 1st century A.D., now needs to be revised in consideration of the fact that there are no materials dating to any later than the mid 1st century B.C.

The analysis of the biological material inside a Dressel 1C amphora found inside Room 1 seems to indicate that it contained cider. Other palaeo-botanical analyses are adding considerable information to the picture of the plant landscape on the island of Elba in the late Republican period.

At this stage of the research, the interpretation of the building at S. Giovanni needs to be revised. The complex, whose actual size has yet to be determined, cannot be considered as the pars rustica of the Villa delle Grotte situated on the promontory above. It precedes the construction of the large villa by at least 50 years and should be considered as a settlement built at least two generations earlier. It was probably a villa that was still of the Catonian type, inspired however by models completely different to those of the Villa delle Grotte.