The landscape in and around Valkenburg has attracted people from the earliest times. The history of Valkenburg begins much earlier than the construction of the castle, long before the streets took shape and the tourists flocked. Hundreds of thousands of years ago people were already camping here in this area. Those Neanderthals enjoyed staying here because of the flint, a type of stone that is easy to find here. The flint provided the raw material for fist axes and other essential tools. Moreover, the residents of the area had from the edge of the Geuldal a good view of the game they were hunting. The tundra landscape in which Neanderthals and the first modern people lived here, changed into primeval forest after the last Ice Age. For the hunters in that forest, and later the farmers, flint was indispensable. Arrows, knives, scrapers, drills and other tools were made from it. The farmers needed so much flint for their axes – to cut forest for their fields-  that they even moved their search underground. That is how the first mining started.