The Caucasus region, on the gateway between

Southwest Asia Western Asia, West Asia, or Southwest Asia, is the westernmost subregion of the larger geographical region of Asia, as defined by some academics, UN bodies and other institutions. It is almost entirely a part of the Middle East, and includes An ...

, Europe and Central Asia, plays a pivotal role in the peopling of Eurasia, possibly as early as during the ''

Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...

'' expansion to Eurasia, in the

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories coi ...

peopling of Europe Paleolithic Europe, or Old Stone Age Europe, encompasses the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age in Europe from the arrival of the first archaic humans, about 1.4 million years ago until the beginning of the Mesolithic (also Epipaleolithic) around 10,00 ...

, and again in the re-peopling

Mesolithic Europe The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymousl ...

following the

Last Glacial Maximum The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Late Glacial Maximum, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent. Ice sheets covered much of Northern North America, Northern Eur ...

, and in the expansion associated with the

Neolithic Revolution The Neolithic Revolution, or the (First) Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an incr ...

Lower to Middle Paleolithic

Dmanisi skull 5 The Dmanisi skull, also known as Skull 5 or D4500, is one of five skulls discovered in Dmanisi, Georgia and classified as early ''Homo erectus''. Described in a publication in October 2013, it is estimated to be about 1.8 million years old and ...

, found in

Dmanisi Dmanisi ( ka, დმანისი, tr, , az, Başkeçid) is a town and archaeological site in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia approximately 93 km southwest of the nation’s capital Tbilisi in the river valley of Mashavera. The hominin ...

, Georgia, is among the earliest ''

'' fossils, dated to 1.8 Ma. *

Azykh Cave Azykh Cave ( az, Azıx mağarası), also referred to as Azokh Cave () is a six-cave complex in Azerbaijan, known as a habitation site of prehistoric humans. It is situated near the village of Azykh in the Khojavend District. The cave is an impo ...

has remnants of the pre-

Acheulean Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped " hand axes" associate ...

, estimated at 0.7 Ma. *

Mousterian The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the lat ...

* Mezmaiskaya cave (70–40 ka)

Upper Paleolithic to Epipaleolithic

* Dzudzuana cave (30 ka) *

Satsurblia cave Satsurblia Cave Natural Monument ( ka, საწურბლიას მღვიმე) is a paleoanthropological site located 1.2 km from Kumistavi village, Tsqaltubo Municipality, in the Imereti region of Georgia, 287 meters above sea le ...

(24 ka) *

Damjili Cave Damjili ( az, Damcılı mağarası) – is a half-circular shaped cave site (6400-6000 BC) in Azerbaijan, where evidence of prehistoric human presence during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic was discovered. Various stone tools, arrowheads, flint k ...

* Dash Salakhly (20 ka) *

Gobustan National Park Gobustan State Historical and Cultural Reserve ( az, Qobustan dövlət tarixi-bədii qoruğu) is located west of the settlement of Gobustan, about southwest of the centre of Baku. It was established in 1966, when the area was declared a national ...

(20–5 ka) *

Trialetian Trialetian is the name for an Upper Paleolithic-Epipaleolithic stone tool industry from the South Caucasus. It is tentatively dated to the period between 16,000 / 13,000 BP and 8,000 BP. Archaeology The name of the archaeological culture deriv ...

(16–8 ka)

Neolithic to Iron Age

Neolithic: * Shulaveri-Shomu culture (8–6 ka) * Metsamor site (6 ka) Bronze Age: *

Maykop culture The Maykop culture (, , scientific transliteration: ''Majkop,''), c. 3700 BC–3000 BC, was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the western Caucasus region. It extends along the area from the Taman Peninsula at the Kerch Strait to ne ...

Leyla-Tepe culture The Leyla-Tepe culture of the South Caucasus belongs to the Chalcolithic era. It got its name from the site in the Agdam district of modern day Azerbaijan. Its settlements were distributed on the southern slopes of Central Caucasus, from 4350 unt ...

* Kura-Araxes culture *

Trialeti culture The Trialeti-Vanadzor culture, previously known as the Trialeti-Kirovakan culture, is named after the Trialeti region of Georgia and the city of Vanadzor, Armenia. It is attributed to the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC. Trialeti-Vanadzor ...

* Jar-Burial Culture *

Kurgan culture The Kurgan hypothesis (also known as the Kurgan theory, Kurgan model, or steppe theory) is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and pa ...

* Khojaly-Gadabay culture (c. 1300 – 600 BC) * Kingdom of Arme-Shupria (c. 1300 – 1190 BC) * Colchian culture (c. 2700 – 700 BC) *

Koban culture The Koban culture (c. 1100 to 400 BC) is a late Bronze Age and Iron Age culture of the northern and central Caucasus. It is preceded by the Colchian culture of the western Caucasus and the Kharachoi culture further east. It is named after the ...

(c. 1100 – 400 BC) The South Caucasus gradually enters the historical period following the

Bronze Age collapse The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC, between c. 1200 and 1150. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near Eas ...

, see history of the Caucasus#Early_history * Kingdom of Diauehi (12th – 9th century BC) *

Nairi Nairi ( classical hy, Նայիրի, ''Nayiri'', reformed: Նաիրի, ''Nairi''; , also ''Na-'i-ru'') was the Akkadian name for a region inhabited by a particular group (possibly a confederation or league) of tribal principalities in the Arme ...

(1114 – 860 BC) *

Kingdom of Urartu Urartu (; Assyrian: ',Eberhard Schrader, ''The Cuneiform inscriptions and the Old Testament'' (1885), p. 65. Babylonian: ''Urashtu'', he, אֲרָרָט ''Ararat'') is a geographical region and Iron Age kingdom also known as the Kingdom of V ...

(c. 860 – 590 BC) *

Neo-Assyrian Empire The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history and the final and greatest phase of Assyria as an independent state. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew t ...

(911 – 609 BC)

Genetic history

Language groups in the Caucasus have been found to have a close correlation to genetic ancestry. A genetic study in 2015 by Jones et al. identified a previously unidentified lineage, which was dubbed ''Caucasian Hunter-Gatherer'' (CHG). The study detected a split between CHG and so-called " Western European Hunter-Gatherer" (WHG) lineages, about 45,000 years ago, the presumed time of the original

. CHG separated from the " Early Anatolian Farmers" (EAF) lineage later, at 25,000 years ago, during the

. (CHG was extrapolated from, among other sources, the genomes of two fossils from western Georgia – one about 13,300 years old (Late Upper Paleolithic) and the other 9,700 years (Mesolithic), which were compared to the 13,700 year-old Bichon man genome (found in Switzerland). A genetic study in 2020 analysing samples from

Klin-Yar Klin-Yar (or Klin-Jar) is a prehistoric and early medieval site in the North Caucasus, outside of Kislovodsk. It was first discovered in the 1980s. Archaeological excavations had uncovered settlement traces and extensive cemetery areas starting in ...

communities, including the

, found that the ancient population had a high frequency of paternal

Haplogroup D-Z27276 Haplogroup D-Z27276 also known as Haplogroup D1a1 is a Y-chromosome haplogroup. It is one of two branches of Haplogroup D1, one of the descendants of Haplogroup D. The other is D-M55 which is only found in Japan. This group is found in about ...

, which is associated with the modern

Tibetan people The Tibetan people (; ) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Tibet. Their current population is estimated to be around 6.7 million. In addition to the majority living in Tibet Autonomous Region of China, significant numbers of Tibetans liv ...

. Other haplogroups were

Haplogroup J1 Haplogroup J-M267, also commonly known as Haplogroup J1, is a subclade (branch) of Y-DNA haplogroup J-P209 (commonly known as haplogroup J) along with its sibling clade haplogroup J-M172 (commonly known as haplogroup J2). (All these haplogr ...

and Haplogroup G-M285.

References

{{reflist

Lower to Middle Paleolithic

Upper Paleolithic to Epipaleolithic

Neolithic to Iron Age

Genetic history

See also

References