The area was settled in protohistory, which is proven by digs undertaken by the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Trier (Trier Rhenish State Museum) from 1971 to 1974 at the Altburg (“Old Castle”) on a mountain spur near Bundenbach, inside a bow in the tributary Hahnenbach. Standing there from about 170 to 50 BC was a Late Iron Age, Late Celtic fortification complex, or "castellum", of the Treveri, a people of mixed Celtic and Germanic stock, from whom the Latin name for the city of Trier, "Augusta Treverorum", is also derived. This hill castle was first laid out as a lightly fortified settlement on the heights and only later given strong walls. The last traces of human presence there vanished in the mid 1st century BC. It is said to be the most thoroughly explored complex of its kind.