## 4 Interpretation of the Objects  
The occurrence of several types of small ceramics materials at Villa del Foro stimulates a number of considerations concerning their use. It is not clear whether the washer-like discs, the spheres and the dice had common functions, although their archaeological association and chronological distribution indicates that they all were in use during the lifetime of the settlement, which is considered to be an Iron Age rich trade site (\"_emporium_\") along the river Tanaro [9]. During VI and V centuries BC the site was a dynamic trade site between the Ligurian populations living along the Tyrrhenian coast, the Golasecca people living in the Pavese area, and the Etruscan population of the Po Valley to the East and of Central Italy to the South. The Villa del Foro settlement was abandoned around the mid-V century BC, a period that started to witness a substantial inflow of Celtic people  
Figure 5: (**a**) XRPD diffractogram measured on the white coating of dice VF91.1531.E38; (**b**) Raman spectroscopic signal of the white coating of the same dice (red), compared with the spectra of reference calcite (green and blue). through the Po Valley, with subsequent intense interaction between the Etruscan and Celtic cultures [9; 21]. The decline of the settlement is mainly related to the change of the trade routes towards the Western Alps (e.g., the way along the Scrivia valley in the direction of Milan and Como increase its importance in time) [9]. Several proposals have been put forward to interpret the use of ceramic washers and balls, such as cultural function, seal for containers of different types, loom weights, pieces for board games or kids' toys, tokens for computation support for pottery. A detailed discussion of the evidence in favor or against each one of the hypothetical functions can be followed in [PERSON] [10] and [PERSON] and [PERSON] [11]. Here we just recall that based on the archaeological context [10], the use/wear traces, and the technological properties and weight of the objects, the most likely function should be either as computational tools, or pieces for board games, likely associated to the dice. The interpretation as tools for calculations is stimulating, and it could in principle be linked to the vast trading activities of the site. Further, it is known that the earliest calculation tools in the Middle East were composed of tokens having different geometrical forms [19]. However, the association of the washers and spheres with dice, especially with the unusually large number of un-inscribed cubic dice, may well indicate an assemblage of board pieces with different shapes and colors, given the observed pigment coating. Indeed the lack of marks or inscriptions in all three types of materials supports this interpretation, rather than counting or divinatory activities. On the other hand, there is little doubt that the dice with incised numbers were used for games. The dice having stick, parallelepiped, or cubic form were in use in the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, and Egypt at least from the III millennium BC [16; 17]. The traditional interpretation is that the dice games were introduced to Central and Northern Italy by Etruscans through the Greek world. There is no evidence of dice in Central Europe and in the Celtic or pre-Celtic cultures West of Italy [16; 22; 23] before Roman times, and this sets the wider cultural context of the Villa del Fore site during the VI and V centuries BC: a trading place between different cultures. Possibly one of the places where dice games were introduced by Etruscans to nearby populations of North-Western Italy. There are two dice with numbers at Villa del Fore: (1) sample SP909 (Figure 6), made of bone, with incised numbers in the 1-6 2-5 3-4 configuration, that is the opposite faces sum to 7 (also defined as the \"_sum 7 rule_\" [14; 15]), and (2) sample VF14.SP386D (Figure 7), made of ceramics, with impressed small points indicating numbers in the 1-6 2-4 3-5 configuration.