Birth

The first signs of human presence in the wider area of Bordeaux go back to the Paleolithic era. Important remains of the Neanderthal man have been discovered in many caves in this region. Around 300 BC the Bituriges Vivisci , one of the many Celtic tribes which strived to find their place in what we now know as France, settled in the area of Bordeaux, establishing their town about 100 km from Garonne River‘s mouth. The town was named Burdigala probably after a river with the name of Bourde which still flows south of the city. That Celtic town would evolve in modern day Bordeaux.

The Celtic or Gallic town became a crossroads of trade, especially tin & other metals between Great Britain & the Iberian Peninsula. The Bituriges were a minor tribe compared to the Aquitani tribes who dominated the region. In 107 BC, during the Cimbrian War (113 BC-101 BC) between the Romans and a number of Germanic and Celtic tribes, the Roman army was crashed in the Battle of Burdigala by the Germanic tribes & their allies, with the Roman commander Lucius Cassius Longinus killed in action along with most of his troops.

Around 56 BC Julius Caesar’s general Publius Crassus with the help of allied Celts completed the conquest of the triangle shaped territory between the Atlantic Ocean, the Pyrenees & the Garonne River, naming it Aquitania. The Bituriges with their town Burdigala are still then not a part of Aquitania but Gallia Celtica  which is also incorporated in the Roman Empire after the end of Ceasar’s Gallic Wars.