The town dates back nearly 3000 years when it was situated on the hills above the Granède, before situating on the left bank of the Tarn on the alluvial plain in the second or first century B.C. The plain gave the town its Gallic name of Condatomagus (Contado meaning "confluence" and magus for the "market"). The site of Condatomagus was identified in the 19th century by Dieudonne du Rey and was close to the major earthenware centre in the Roman Empire, La Graufesenque. This is where luxury ceramics such as red terra sigillata were made. Despite major new development in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the centre of the old Roman and medieval town on the opposite (left) bank of the Tarn remains poorly excavated, and the newly renovated "Maison du Peuple", almost on the site of the old Roman forum, saw no archaeology before major mechanical excavation for recent new very deep foundations. The local museum sits almost adjacent to this site.