Germany and the province became part of the Third French Republic. After having been occupied and annexed by Germany during World War II, it was returned to France by the Allies at the end of World War II. Pre-Roman Alsace The presence of hominids in Alsace can be traced back 600,000 years. By 4000 BCE farming, in the form of Linear Pottery Culture, or LBK, arrived in the region from the Danube and the Hungarian plain. LBK culture was characterized by "timber longhouse settlements and incised pottery ... favoring floodplain edge situations for their permanent villages ... [and] small clearings in the forest" for their crops and animals." By 100 BCE Germanic peoples, including eventually the Suebi and other tribes under Ariovistus, had begun to intrude into areas along the upper Rhine and Danube long settled by Celtic Gauls. Alsace itself had come to be occupied by the Triboci, a Germanic tribe allied with Ariovistus. Roman Alsace In response to the threat posted by Ariovistus, the Aedui, a Celtic tribe allied to Rome, appealed to the Roman Senate and Julius Caesar for aid. In 58 BCE, after negotiations with Ariovistus failed, Julius Caesar routed the Suebi at the foot of the Vosges near what became Cernay in southern Alsace. There followed a "long period of security ... for the Gauls along the middle and upper Rhine." From the time of Augustus to the early fifth century AD, the area of Alsace was incorporated into the Roman province of Germania Superior. As a border province, the Romans built fortifications and military camps, many of which, including Argentoratum (Strasbourg), evolved into modern towns and cities. Alemannic and Frankish Alsace In 357 CE, Germanic tribes attempted to conquer Alsace but they were rebuffed by the Romans. With the decline of the Roman Empire, Alsace became the territory of the Germanic Alemanni. The Alemanni were agricultural people, and their Germanic language formed the basis of modern-day dialects spoken along the Upper Rhine (Alsatian, Alemannian, Swabian, Swiss). Clovis and the Franks defeated the Alemanni during the 5th century AD, culminating with the Battle of Tolbiac, and Alsace became part of the Kingdom of Austrasia. Under Clovis' Merovingian successors the inhabitants were Christianized. Alsace remained under Frankish control until the Frankish realm, following the Oaths of Strasbourg of 842, was formally dissolved in 843 at the Treaty of Verdun; the grandsons of Charlemagne divided the realm