rSYA Dargwas
Andis
A1 Akhvakhs A2 Bagulals A3 Botlikhs A4 Chamalals A5 Godoberis A6 Karatas A7 Tindis
Didos and related tribes
D1 Didos D2 Bezhtas D3 Hunzibs D4 Khavarshis
Lezgians
L1 Aguls L2 Arch is L3 Kryz L4 Rutuls 15 Tabarascans L6 Tsakhurs 17 Udis
44 A2M
georgia
turkey armenia
azerbaijan
100 miles
100 km
Caspian Sea
) Infobase Publishing
In the South Caucasus in the third-seventh centuries, the Persians under the rule of the Sassanians were dominant, but other peoples, such as the Armenians, competed with them. In the sixth century a confederation of Turks known as Goktuks built an empire that extended from Mongolia to the Black Sea. Avars are known to have been in the Caucasus region by the mid-sixth century before they pushed on west and created a khanate in central Europe. In the seventh to eighth centuries Arab Muslims became the dominant power to the south. Khazars held territory from the steppes southward to Transcaucasia, that is, lands south of the Caucasus Mountains in Asia. Arabs meanwhile expanded northward out of Arabia, spreading the Islamic religion. The Khazars resisted, but by the mid-seventh century the Arabs seized territory in the North Caucasus region. The Khazars succeeded in driving them back into Transcaucasia in 685 but were themselves forced out of Transcaucasia by the 720s. The Byzantines out of Constantinople, from the fifth to the seventh century, held territory in the South Caucasus.
From the 11th to the 13th century the Caucasians were flanked by the Seljuk Turks to the south. The Alans still held lands in the North Caucasus, but the Turkic Kipchaks to their north were more powerful. In the 13th century the Mongols invaded from eastern Asia, and the Caucasus Mountains eventually became the dividing line between two khanates, the Kipchak khanate (or Khanate of the Golden Horde) to the north and the Ilkanate to the south. Both of these khanates consisted of numerous Turkic peoples, some of whom became known—some sharing bloodlines with Mongols—as Tatars. In the late 14th century after the Mongol Empire had weakened, a Turkic ruler by the name of Tamerlane (Timur), from Samarkand in the region of Turkestan (part of present-day Uzbekistan in Asia), created an empire extending as far east as the territory between the Caspian and Black Seas, including the Caucasus. The Ottoman Turks were the next great power in the territory south of the Caucasus, and they dominated the region for subsequent centuries.
With the breakup of the Mongol Empire in 1382 some people of the Caucasus—some among whom in the north were known as Circassians—regained their independence. Most of them by this time were Muslims. Many of the Caucasians of present-day Georgia (formerly the Kingdom of Georgia), where Christianity had been introduced in the fourth century, were Christians.
Through these centuries of occupation by other peoples many of the Caucasians managed to maintain their traditional lifeways by remaining in the high country of the Caucasus Mountains.
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