Oppidum des Châteliers

About

L'oppidum des Châteliers () is a French archaeological site in the commune of Amboise, in the department of Indre-et-Loire, in the Centre-Val de Loire region. Dominating the modern city of Amboise, it is strategically located on a limestone spur that dominates the confluence of the Loire and one of its tributaries, the Amass. At its end is the medieval castle of Amboise.

After first indications of human presence in the Paleolithic, the Châteliers plateau was occupied almost continuously from Neolithic to the fourth century. With a maximum area of more than 50 ha, this oppidum is perhaps, under the name of Ambacia, the main city and "capital" of the Gallic people of Turones at the end of the Iron Age. In any case, it is by far the largest of the oppida recorded in Indre-et-Loire and among the twenty largest in France.

It then included a religious and community centre, artisanal workshops and housing sectors, all of which were organized according to an urbanization plan that archaeologists began to grasp. Caesar's butt, probably a funeral tumulus of the bronze age or the first iron age but...