The goals of CB 54 for the 2012 season were to:

1. To search for evidence of non-elite habitation on the western area of the hill in association with the previous architecture and deposits of the area.

2. To search for new architectural, stratigraphic, and topographic information for an area of the hill that has had little previous excavation.

3. To recover dateable material from a secure context to better understand the occupation period of Civitate B.

CB 54 was partially successful this season in achieving the goals set forth at the start of excavation. The excavation of CB 54 did not discover any evidence of non-elite habitation on the western area of the hill nor did it find dateable material in a secure context, however it does provide new stratigraphic and topographic information for an area of the hill previously unknown.

In conjunction with CB 57 ( EMO III ) and CB 53 ( ARR III ), we now have a better understanding of how the terrace south of the medieval road functioned. Most of the trench was filled with an erosional fill (see loci 2, 3, 4, and 5). Underneath this fill was a dark-brown claylike soil (locus 6) that extended into CB 57 and CB 60 ( AJC IV ). After removing this layer a white-yellow flakey soil was found, that sloped towards the south baulk wall and then underneath CB 57's floor surface. There still remained a small strip of light brown soil along the southern baulk that seemed to be filling in the rest of the galestra slope.

It is hard to determine if this slope was naturally occurring or intentionally excavated. Either way, one possible use of the slope would be to help with drainage from the rock shelf exposed in CB 53 for the lower terrace and any possible structures which may have stood in CB 56 ( LHS I ) and CB 57 ( EMO III ).

Due to the constraints of the excavation we were unable to determine if the galestra was sterile or not. CB 54 will need to be further excavated to fully understand the nature of these soils and their relations with the other Civitate B trenches.