Cantabria is a small country located in the north-central coast situated of the Iberian Peninsula with at no more less 600.000 citizens at the present. The Capital is in Santander the biggest city of the Country.
The first evidences of human occupation in Cantabria went back to 100,000 B..C. In the industrial assemblies found in the cave of The Castle . Of the period of the years 35,000 to 8,000 B.C. are the Caves of Altamira, The Pasiega or Morín. In this period the first artistic expression of the man arises, the rock art of the one that find in Cantabria the better examples (Altamira and the assemblies of Ramales and Puente Viesgu). The Caves of Altamira have reached a world recognition and they have been declared world heritage by the UNESCO.
Cantabria is a nation with more than 2,000 years of History, with own personality but with a important Celtic influence as well. An example of this influence and relationship is the "Calderu of Cabarcenu" original from Ireland , that shows that in elder times the contact between the two nations exist.
In the century II B.C. the Roman historians already identify -and wrote down- the Cantabrian People as a People a Nation differentiated of the ones that inhabited the Iberian Peninsula .
The Cantabrian Nation was organized in Tribes and then in Clans. The Cantabrian were: the Orgenomescos; the Vanidienses; the Tamaricos; the Plentusios; the Blendios; the Coniscos; the Saleanos; the Concanos; the Avariginios. Apart from this a very tighten relation exists with the tribe of the Autrigones in the east of our territory, although itself does not be included in Cantabria by the official historians
Cantabria was the last nation to fall under the Roman Empire . The Cantabrian Wars took place between the years 29 and 19 B.C. With the name of Cantabrian Wars is known to the hard campaign that developed the Roman Imperial army against the Cantabrian People in which they utilized 7 legions (70,000 soldiers). But the conquest and romanizatión in if lasted some 200 years and the Romanization itself wasn’t very deep. Many disturbances happened against the occupation.
For example a lot of time after the occupation of Cantabria by the Romans the cantabrian kept and maintaining its beliefs and its old pagan religion. In fact , it was discovered an ”Ara” dedicated to some Cantabrian Gods in the Mount Dobra in the 399 A.C. The Cantabrian they practiced worships of naturalistic type: venerated to the mounts, forests, lakes, rivers, some animals ... The solar representations of the numerous gigantic rock wakes that have been found, they cause they suppose that also the worship to a solar God would exist. They had a Gods Council and this Solar God could be one of –or the- the principals. This gigantic rock wake have been found in Zurita de Piélagos, Barros y Lombera en Buelna y San Vicente de Toranzo.
It seems that the cremation with the deceased was practiced, except with the ones that died in the battlefield, that should remain lying down there until the vultures to open their bowels to transport their souls to the sky (this it is a custom that has remained reflected in one of the faces of the wake of Zurita). The Cantabrian they used as strategy the guerrilla warfare and were skillful riders (some Cantabrian strategies of cavalry were adopted by the Roman army). They had hymns of battle that intoned even when they were crucified. Of brutal, self-sacrificing, and heroic character at the same time, illustrative anecdotes of the war arrive that maintained with the Romans.
When Roman Empire collapses Cantabria recover Independence with the same territory than before the Roman occupation. This was from III-IV century till VI century when the Visigoths started attacking Cantabria.
Cantabrian do not give samples of roman influence, therefore they conserve their preroman language in great measure and are pagans. Thus, Cantabria remains alien to the Visigoth kingdom to Leovigildo that was proposed to submit to the towns that still they escaped to their control in the middle of the century VI B.C. It penetrated