Charente
Charente (; Saintongese: ''Chérente''; ) is a department in the administrative region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine, southwestern France. It is named after the river Charente, the most important and longest river in the department, and also the r ...
Vilhonneur was located on the Angoulême-Limoges Roman road, which was also known as the "English Road" (chemin des Anglais).
The Rochebertier tower is mentioned in a confession to Philip the Bold in 1276. A medieval castle, of which exist only traces of the foundations, is located on a hillock. The present castle was built by the Chambes (aka Jambes) family in the late sixteenth century.
Population
Sights
The town has two prehistoric caves of an exceptional nature.
The Placard cave, at Rochebertier, was discovered in 1853 and has been dated to the
Magdalenian
Magdalenian cultures (also Madelenian; ) are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years before present. It is named after the type site of Abri de la Madeleine, a ro ...
and
Solutrean
The Solutrean industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Paleolithic of the Final Gravettian, from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP. Solutrean sites have been found in modern-day France, Spain and Portugal.
Detai ...
periods. New paintings were discovered in 1990, identical to those in the Pech Merle cave at Lot.
The "Face" cave (grotte du Visage) was discovered in November 2005 during a caving expedition. It contains engravings as well as human and animal bones dating from the Upper Paleolithic period (around 25 000 years BCE).
At the site of the old Roman ford there is still the 50 cm-wide stone bridge, which was characteristic of the Tardoire and Bandiat valleys.
See also
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Communes of the Charente department
The following is a list of the 359 communes of the Charente department of France on 1 January 2025.
The communes cooperate in the following intercommunalities (as of 2025):Former communes of Charente
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