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Sandstone tools and flaked stone implements dating from 700,000 B.C. and discovered in sand quarries in the middle reaches of the Vilaine Valley are reminders of constant human settlement in Upper Brittany in the ancient days of prehistory, in the area now known as Ille-et-Vilaine.
The Stone Age dating from 4,000 years B.C. has left a number of grandiose remains in Ille-et-Vilaine, among them the passage grave at La Roche-aux-Fées.  It is an Anjou-type porticoed dolmen built of enormous blocks of red shale and it consists of one chamber and an antechamber. In all, it is almost 19.5 metres in length.

The tribes of hunters, many of them nomadic, gradually became settled and independent towns were built in Western Gaul (2nd century B.C). The area now known as Ille-et-Vilaine then included the territory of the Riedones in the centre and east, part of the territory of the Coriosolites in the west, the territory of the Venetii in the south-west and the land belonging to the Namneti in the south.
The arrival of the Roman army under Julius Caesar in 57 B.C. marked the beginnings of revolts and conflict, sometimes even between tribes.
Eventually, the period of uprisings was followed by four centuries of peace known as pax romana.

Sources :
?Société d'histoire et d'Archéologie de l'arrondissement de Saint-Malo. Annales 1987?, pp. 223-236.
?Bretagne, Ille-et-Vilaine?, Olivier Gallard, Xavier Ferrieu, April 1999, Gal'art édition.