Prehistoric Caucasus


The Caucasus region, on the gateway between Southwest Asia and Europe, plays a pivotal role in the peopling of Eurasia,
possibly as early as during the Homo erectus expansion to Eurasia,
in the Upper Paleolithic peopling of Europe,
and again in the re-peopling Mesolithic Europe following the Last Glacial Maximum, and in the expansion associated with the Neolithic Revolution.

Lower to Middle Paleolithic

, found in Dmanisi, Georgia, is among the earliest Homo erectus fossils, dated to 1.8 Ma.
  • Azykh Cave has remnants of the pre-Acheulean, estimated at 0.7 Ma.
  • Mousterian
  • Mezmaiskaya cave

    Upper Paleolithic to Epipaleolithic

  • Dzudzuana cave
  • Satsurblia cave
  • Damjili Cave
  • Dash Salakhly
  • Gobustan National Park
  • Trialetian

    Neolithic to Iron Age

Neolithic:
  • Shulaveri-Shomu culture
  • Metsamor site
Bronze Age:
  • Maykop culture
  • Leyla-Tepe culture
  • Kura-Araxes culture
  • Trialeti culture
  • Jar-Burial Culture
  • Kurgan culture
  • Khojaly–Gadabay culture
  • Kingdom of Arme-Shupria
  • Colchian culture
  • Koban culture
The South Caucasus gradually enters the historical period
following the Bronze Age collapse, see history of the Caucasus
  • Kingdom of Diauehi
  • Nairi
  • Kingdom of Urartu
  • Neo-Assyrian Empire

    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. The study detected a split between CHG and so-called "Western European Hunter-Gatherer" lineages, about 45,000 years ago, the presumed time of the original peopling of Europe. CHG separated from the "early Anatolian farmers" lineage later, at 25,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum. and the other 9,700 years, which were compared to the 13,700 year-old Bichon man genome.
A genetic study in 2020 analyzing samples from Klin-Yar communities, including the Koban culture, found that the ancient population had one sample of paternal Haplogroup D-Z27276. Most other paternal lineages in the study were Haplogroup J1 and Haplogroup G-M285.