1 BABESCH 94 (2019), 1-38. doi: 10.2143/BAB.94.0.3286776 Bisenzio (Capodimonte, VT - Italy) between the Bronze and the Archaic Age. A minor centre or a relevant hub in the inland district of South Etruria? Report of the ‘Bisenzio Project’ research activities, 2015-2016. A. Babbi, F. Delpino, P.M. Guarino, M. Lucarini, F. Miketta, H. Schiel, I. Trinks Abstract Since 2015, an international and multi-disciplinary research project supported by the Deutsche Forschungs- gemeinschaft (DFG) has been systematically studying the ‘Etruscan’ site of Bisenzio situated in the district of the modern town of Capodimonte (Viterbo), inland of South Etruria and west of Lake Bolsena. Considering that a community thrived there uninterruptedly between the late 10 th century and the early 5 th century BC, our knowledge of the evidence from both the residential area and the cemeteries is limited and unsystematic. This paper offers a short overview of the previous research and a more detailed comment on the investigations carried out during the first two years of the new research project. 1. INTRODUCTION Four kilometres north of the modern town of Capo- dimonte (Viterbo - Lazio), on the southwest shore of the volcanic Lake Bolsena (fig. 1a-b), we find the small Bisenzio hill (404.8 m asl) that commands a wide view across the lake, nowadays at about 305 m asl (fig. 1c). In the east, steep cliffs characterise the profile of the hill, while in the other direc- tions, the promontory gently runs down toward the flat or slightly undulated landscape that either meets the lake or turns into the hilly countryside in the distance (fig. 2). The toponym ‘Bisenzio’ derives from that of the Roman municipium, i.e. ‘Visentium’, located in the same district. However, the inception of a perma- nent settlement on the hill is much earlier and dates back to at least the Final Bronze Age. 1 This community thrived between the 10 th and early 5 th century BC, at the end of which this dynamic and powerful Etruscan town underwent a pro- found crisis. The great scientific interest in Bisenzio is fos- tered by some of its peculiar features. First of all, the site is a real one-off in the framework of set- tlement nucleation trends documented in the inland area of southern Etruria, west of Lake Bol- sena. In fact, Bisenzio is the only Bronze Age set- tlement thriving uninterruptedly into the early 5 th century BC. 2 In this respect, this trend echoes the evidence of the central Tyrrhenian coastal region, despite the substantial differences that Fig. 1a. Location of Bisenzio (A. Babbi).