villa and 35 burials at a site northwest of the town, just to the south of the Roc de Peillet, a small limestone outcrop on the old alluvial terrace of the Rhône called Les Ramières. The earliest finds date from the Augustan period (63 BC-14 AD). The site was abandoned during the 7th century. Roquemaure castle In the medieval period Roquemaure was the site of an important castle that stood on a limestone outcrop in the Rhône. The surviving ruins include two towers, the Square Tower (Tour carrée) and the Round Tower (Tour ronde) that date from the 12th and 13th centuries. Next to the Round Tower are the remains of a toll collector's house that dates from the same period. The ruins are currently privately owned. On the opposite bank of the Rhône is a similar limestone outcrop on which sits the ruins of another medieval castle, the Château de l'Hers. In the Middle Ages the Rhône was somewhat wider at this point than it is today and both castles sat on islands within the river. The first written record of the Roquemaure castle dates from 1209, on eve of the Albigensian Crusade. The castle at the time was controlled by Raymond VI of Toulouse but on being accused by Pope Innocent III of sheltering heretics, he agreed to donate seven castles, including that of Roquemaure (castrum de Roccamaura), to the papal legate in Avignon. A document from four years later (1213) mentions a tower and a cistern. The tower is almost certainly the existing Square Tower that dominates the ruins. In 1229 the castle was acquired by the French king, Louis IX, in the Treaty of Paris. There are no surviving 13th century documents that give details on the construction of the castle but it is clear from records of the money spent on maintenance that by the beginning of the 14th century the castle included a curtain wall crowned with a parapet that sheltered a number of houses as well as an oven, a large well, a garden containing a second well, a chapel and prisons. The castle occupied an important position on the border of the territory ruled by the French crown, as at the time, the papacy controlled the Comtat Venaissin on the opposite bank of the Rhône. During the 14th and 15th centuries the castle was the only residence with suitable accommodation for high-ranking