At the end of the Roman Empire (476 A.D.) the road along the Valcanale probably lost some of its importance; there was a demographic and economic decline and when, over a period lasting approximately four hundred years, various hordes of peoples, from Marcomanni to Longobards, migrating south towards the Italic plains arrived at the entrance to the valley, they found it had grown wild and had few traces of the past. Perhaps all that remained were the ruts made by the wheels of carts that for centuries had travelled along the dusty pebbly road and that had transported men and materials such as iron, pelts, wine, oil and above all the Roman-Latin civilisation .