An important factor in the establishment of a settlement at Speyer was its location on the main European traffic routes along the Rhine. There were only very few locations along the Rhine between Basel and Mainz where banks were high enough to be safe from floods, yet still close to the river. Another advantage was the nearby confluence of the Neckar, 20 km downstream. The Neckar valley stretches southeast towards the Danube. To the west, the low hills between the Palatinate Forest and Hunsr�ck mountains made for easy access in the direction of modern-day Kaiserslautern and beyond to Gaul. Several ferries across the Rhine near Speyer in the medieval era bear witness to its importance as a crossroads.
5,000-year-old evidence of permanent agricultural settlements around Speyer shows that these advantages did not escape the attention of Neolithic, Bronze Age, Hallstatt culture and La T�ne culture peoples. One of the most renowned finds from around 1500 BC is the Golden Hat of Schifferstadt, discovered in a field about 10 km northwest of Speyer, and now on display in the Historical Museum of Speyer. In the second millennium BC, the area of Speyer was settled by the Celtic Mediomatrici. A Celtic grave from around 50 � 20 BC was unearthed in Johannesstrasse. It is considered to be exceptional because Celtic grave sites were very rare in the Palatinate and Upper Rhine area at the time it was made.
After the conquest of Gaul by the Romans in 50 B.C. the Rhine became part of the border of the Roman Empire. The Romans erected camps and forts along the river from the Alps down to the North Sea. The history of Speyer began with the construction of one of these camps around 10 BC for a 500-man�strong infantry group and also intended as a base for further conquests to the east of the Rhine. The decisive factor for the location were the wedge-shaped high river banks, of which the tip pointed far east into the floodplain of the Rhine. Thus, the settlement, although
