Individual artefacts from the earliest settlement of the area date back to the early/middle Stone Age. In the following periods a burial site with 1,000 tumuli in the area of Kalbeck, settlement remains on the Hees, remnants of the Roman road between Cologne and Nijmegen in the Netherlands and a significant discovery of Roman silver coins have all been found on municipal soil. Franconian burial sites from around the 8th century have also been unearthed in the close vicinity of the town centre.