Location of the tribe of the Autrigones.
The Autrigones (also called Austrigones or Aurigotes) were a pre-Roman people of ancient Spain, described by the Roman historian Paulus Orosius as neighbours of the Gallaeci,[1] and thus had their homeland in the northwest of Hispania.
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Their historical territory now lies split between the provinces of Cantabria (east of Ason river), Burgos (north-east), Biscay (west of Nervion-Ibaizabal river), Alava (west) and La Rioja (west). Pliny the Elder writes about the "ten states of the Autrigones" and says the only ones worth mentioning are Tritium Autrigonum (Monasterio de Rodilla – Burgos) and Virovesca (possibly the present-day Briviesca – Burgos; Celtiberian-type mint: Uirouiaz)[2] in the valley of Oca River. The other Autrigones' towns were Deobriga (near Miranda de Ebro – Burgos), Uxama Barca (Osma de Valdegobia; Celtiberian-type mint: Uarcaz?), Segisamunculum (Cerezo del Riotirón – Burgos), Antecuia (near Pancorbo – Burgos), Vindeleia (Cubo de Bureba – Burgos), Salionca (Poza de la Sal – Burgos) and the port of Portus Amanus/Flaviobriga (Castro Urdiales – Cantabria).
According to the scant resources on them, the Autrigones were possibly a Central European Celtic people who originally settled the Garonne valley area in Gaul in the 5th century BC, where they mingled with the Belgae. Around the beginning of the 4th century BC they and some of their Belgae vassals migrated to the Iberian Peninsula as part of the Celtic migration.[3][4]
The Autrigones were culturally related to the early Iron Age ‘Monte Bernorio-Miraveche’ cultural group of northern Burgos and Palencia provinces. Additional archeological evidence indicates that by the 2nd Iron Age they came under the influence of the Celtiberians. By the 1st Century BC they were organized into a federation of autonomous mountain-top fortified towns (Civitates) on the mountain ranges of the upper Ebro, protected by stout adobe walls of the "Numantine" type.
More archeological evidence have been found, emphasizing their celtiberian culture, as the hospitality tessera, a zoomorphic shape figure with an inscription written using iberian alphabet, but describing some kind of celtiberian language. [5]
After crossing the Pyrenees, the Autrigones pushed through the mountainous Navarra region and the upper Ebro basin into the northern meseta. By the mid-4th century BC they overrun the entire area corresponding today to the modern provinces of Cantabria and Burgos – which eventually became known as Autrigonia or Austrigonia – reaching the Pisuerga valley where they established their first capital Autraca or Austraca, located at the banks of the river Autra (Odra). They also gained an outlet to the sea by seizing from the Aquitanian-speaking Caristii further east the coastal highland region between the rivers Asón and Neroua (Nervión), in the modern Vizcaya and Álava Basque provinces. However, their hold on this vast territory was meant to be short-lived; some time after 300 BC, they were driven out from southern Autrigonia (the western Burgos region) by the Turmodigi and the Vaccei, who seized the Autrigones’ early capital Autraca. Thrust back to their lands north of the Arlanzón valley during the 3rd Century BC, the Autrigones’ became in the 2nd-1st Centuries BC a tribal society similar to the peoples of the north-west.
They seem to have taken no part in the Celtiberian wars though as traditional allies of the Berones helped the latter in fighting off the roman general Sertorius' incursion into northern Celtiberia in 76 BC,[6] and remained independent until the late 1st Century BC, when the mounting pressure of Astures and Cantabri raids finally forced them to seek an alliance with Rome. Despite being aggregated in the new Hispania Tarraconensis province at the early 1st Century AD, the Autrigones were only partially romanized, never became Christian and continued to provide the Roman Imperial army with auxiliary troops (Auxilia) up to the late Empire. The Autrigone people survived the overthrow of the Roman Empire in Spain by the Germanic invasions of the late 4th century and briefly recreated their realm in parts of the current provinces of Burgos, Álava and Biscay which lasted for nearly two centuries, until possibly being finally absorbed by the Varduli and the later ended up being absorbed or displaced to the northern regions of Burgos by the Vascones in around AD 580[7].