page_title: Angers
section_title: Prehistory and antiquity
hierarchical_section_title: Angers / History / Prehistory and antiquity
context_page_description: Angers is a city in western France, about 300 km southwest of Paris. It is chef-lieu of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Anjou until the French Revolution. The inhabitants of both the city and the province are called Angevins. Not including the metropolitan area, Angers is the third most populous commune in northwestern France after Nantes and Rennes and the 18th in France.
  For centuries, Angers was an important stronghold in northwestern France. It was the cradle of the Plantagenet dynasty and became one of the intellectual centers of Europe during the reign of René of Anjou. Angers developed at the confluence of three rivers, the Mayenne, the Sarthe, and the Loir, all coming from the north and flowing south to the Loire. Their confluence, just north of Angers, creates the Maine, a short but wide river that flows into the Loire several kilometres south. The Angers metropolitan area is a major economic centre in western France, particularly active in industry, horticulture, and tourism.
  Angers proper covers 42.70 square kilometers and has a population of 152,960 inhabitants, while around 422,700 live in its metropolitan area.
context_section_description: The first sign of human presence in Angers dates back to around 400,000 BC. Vestiges from the Neolithic are more abundant and include numerous polished stone axes. Burials from 4500 x 3500 BC were also discovered on the castle grounds.
  During the 5th century BC, the Andecavi, a Celtic people, settled north of the Loire. By the end of the Iron Age, Angers was a relatively densely populated hillfort. While the settlement's Roman name—Juliomagus—may be older, it is only attested from the 3rd century. The Roman town consisted of many villas and baths and had an amphitheater as well as a Mithraeum, a temple dedicated to Mithra.
  Successive Germanic invasions in AD 275 and 276 forced the inhabitants to move to the highest point of their city and to build a wall around a small area of around 9 hectares (22 acres).
caption: A model of a sword from the Bronze Age discovered in the 2000s in the Maine riverbed
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