Sainte-Pierre-d’Irube, and Mouguerre. In the Middle Paleolithic era (700,000-100,000 years ago), neanderthals inhabited this area. At the beginning they lived in the open air and later in caves, like the one in Isturits. Cro-magnon people appeared during the Upper Paleolithic (9000-50,000 years ago). Many artistic objects from the Magdalenian era (9000-14,000 years ago) have been found in Isturits. The most well-known object found is a bird bone with three holes in it in the shape of a . Moving into the Mesolithic era, humans began to live outside of caves, despite the fact that these were still used until a much later date. Also, during this era, the artefacts of ceramics, agriculture, and raising livestock were discovered. During the Neolithic era (4000-3000 B.C.E.), new techniques for the use of metals and agriculture arrived. Antiquity The present-day territory was inhabited by the Tarbelli and the Sibulates, tribal divisions of the Aquitani. When Caesar conquered Gaul, he found all the region south and west of the Garonne inhabited by a people known as the Aquitani, who were not Celtic and are nowadays assumed to have been early Basques (see Aquitanian language). In early Roman times, the region was initially known as Aquitania, but by the end of the 3rd century, when use of the name Aquitania was extended to cover the region up to the river Loire, as Novempopulania (). Its name in Latin means the nine peoples, as a reference to the nine tribes that inhabited it: The Tarbelli lived along the coast of Labourd and Chalosse, near (Dax) The Ausci in the Gers and the city of (Auch) The Bigerriones from Bigorre in (Tarbes) The Convenae in the Comminges, (Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges) The Consorani, who occupied Couserans (Saint-Lizier) The Lactorates in Lomagne, (Lectoure) The Elusates, in lower Armagnac with the city of (Eauze) The Vocates (Vassei or Vocates) in the southeast of Gironde or Bazadais, with its capital in (Bazas) The Boii in Pays de Buch, lived in the city of (Le Teich) The region reached a high level of Romanization, as many of the toponyms with Latin or Celtic suffixes, such as or , demonstrate. In the north of what is now French Basque Country, these (toponyms) become more frequent: e.g., Loupiac and Gaillan. However, in the southeast of the territory, the less Romanized area, toponyms with Basque suffixes are abundant: , , and , such as Biscarrosse and Almandoz, for