Varduli

Their ethnonym Varduli is connected with an area that is referred to in documents from the early Middle Ages as Bardulia, which is mentioned as the cradle of Old Castile, following the decline of the Navarrese Kingdom.

This lack of agreement about their exact position may have been caused by the continuous movement of the tribes of the northern Iberian Peninsula during events such as the Cantabrian Wars.

According to several authors in Classical antiquity, such as Ptolemy, Pliny the Elder and Pomponius Mela[9] other Vardulian cities were Alba and Gebala (today's Gebara), in the interior; while Tritium Tuboricum, a little west of the Deba river (Deva, Deua or Deba = Goddess), Menosca and Morogi or Morosgi, were on the Atlantic coast (on the south coast of the Bay of Biscay).

The First Cohort of the Varduli are also mentioned in inscriptions at the Antonine Wall, Longovicium in Durham, Bremenium and Corstopitum in Northumberland and on the Dere Street in Cappuck in the Scottish Borders.

[2][3][4] However, apart from a few exceptions (Deba, Zegama, Arakama) present-day place-names show a clear prevalence of the Basque linguistic element (sometimes mixed with Latin/Romance lexical roots).

The union, whatever the causes, between Varduli, Caristii and Autrigones in a single territory would later create the obscure County of Bardulia, mentioned as part of the cradle of Proto-Castile.

Living in the Iberian Peninsula from the 3rd Century BC, the Varduli were settled in the northern region, close to the Pyrenees, in a Celt-Aquitanian "mixed" area.