This is the dig of one of the largest fortified enbanked villages (20 hectares, 50 acres)in the lower Verona province, an area known as Great Veronese Valleys. The archaeologists called the village Fondo Paviani, which means Paviani's Property, from the name of the owner of the land. Fondo Paviani is situated on the western edge of the paleo-valley of the river Menago. It was the hub of a political-territorial system which included all of the lower Veronese plain and was also well known for its contacts with continental Europe, peninsular Italy and the Aegean-Mycenaean world. Here you can see the dig at the enbankment (made of huge wooden cases filled with dirt)on the left, and the team of high school students, under the supervision of the archaeologists of the University of Padova on the right. The young apprentice archaeologists are working in an inhabited area, you can see the posthole of a structure, and an area of baked ground, near the upside bucket, possibly a working area for baking pottery or melting metals. Fondo Paviani was created on a series of sandy humps of fluvial origin during the transition from the Middle Bronze Age 3 to the Recent Bronze Age and, in this phase, it was only surrounded by a ditch and, perhaps, a palisade. In the later Recent Bronze Age an imposing system of fortifications was created comprising a large embankment and a second wide ditch. The site remained active until the Final Bronze Age. It succeeded in surviving the so-called 1200 BC collapse, when the Mycenaean palaces were destroyed, trade lines severed, and their trade partners declined abruptly. The photos were taken in summer 2012, in the Open Dig Day promoted by the Museum of Legnago, where all the artefacts from the villages and the necropolises of the area are preserved. The most important finds of the campaigns at Fondo Paviani are the 20 sherds of about ten types of Mycenaean pottery found in the area where the elite lived. These sherds show that the village was active in long distance trade and it was rich enough to afford luxury goods such as wine, oil, perfumes and glass beads from the Mycenaean world. They exchanged bronze weapons, horses and amber. Thanks for your kind comments.