TRANSCAUCASIA, HISTORY OF

history of the region from prehistoric times to the present. Food-gathering cultures of Mesolithic type, as represented by discoveries near Nalchik (Russia) in the central Caucasus, continued in this region until quite late. They were replaced in the later part of the 3rd millennium BC by the Kuban culture, which left its remains in many thousands of burial mounds, or kurgans, on the steppes of Ciscaucasia. This Kuban culture, which lasted through the Late Bronze Age into Early Iron Age times, was undoubtedly stimulated by contact with the higher civilization of Mesopotamia. The grave furniture of the kurgans, as in the famous royal grave at Maykop (Russia), included metalwork of great refinement, often ornamented with animal motifs. A common weapon was the shaft-hole copper battle-ax, of a type also found in central and northern Europe. There is evidence that the distribution of this weapon resulted from a migration of horse-riding folk, the so-called Battle-Ax people, who spread Indo-European speech. Their place of origin is not certain, but it was more probably in the east than in the west of their area of spread. A South Caucasian, or Kura-Aras, culture, again associated with rich metalwork and characterized also by tholoi (beehive-shaped tombs), cyclopean masonry (characterized by large, irregular stone blocks fitted without mortar), and burnished black pottery with incised spiral decoration, dates from the late 3rd millennium BC. Evidence of this culture has been found particularly in the kurgans of the Trialeti district in central Georgia, notably that of Beshtasheni. Comparable pottery has been found at Karaz near Erzurum (Turkey), at Geoy Tepe in Iranian Azerbaijan, in the 'Amuq plain near Antioch in Turkey, and as far away as Khirbet Kerak in Israel. Transcaucasia contains some fine church architecture dating from the 4th century AD onward, including some very early pendentives. Ashlar masonry was used there instead of the bricks more common in Byzantine architecture. The most extensive remains of this kind are in the ruins of the city of Ani (modern Ocakli) in Turkey, across the border from Armenia. Additional reading The geography, economy, culture, and history of the region are explored in Glenn E. Curtis (ed.), Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia: Country Studies (1995). Charles Burney and David Marshall Lang, The Peoples of the Hills: Ancient Ararat and Caucasus (1971), concentrates on the prehistory of Transcaucasia and eastern Anatolia. James Bryce, Transcaucasia and Ararat, 4th ed., rev. (1896, reprinted 1970), is an account of travels by a noted British observer of the time. Anthony L.H. Rhinelander, Prince Michael Vorontsov: Viceroy to the Tsar (1990), is a historical biography also describing the area as it was in the mid-19th century. The events of the beginning of the 20th century are described in Artin Arslanian, The British Decision to Intervene in Transcaucasia During World War I, The Armenian Review, 27(2):146159 (Summer 1974); Richard G. Hovanissian, Armenia and the Caucasus in the Genesis of the Soviet-Turkish Entente, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 4(2):129147 (1973); Firuz Kazemzadeh, The Struggle for Transcaucasia, 19171921 (1951, reprinted 1981); and Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 19171923, rev. ed. (1964), focusing on the revolutionary years. Oliver Baldwin, Six Prisons and Two Revolutions: Adventures in Trans-Caucasia and Anatolia, 19201921 (1925), is the memoir of an adventurer who witnessed the years of revolution and the establishment of Soviet power in Armenia. Ronald Grigor Suny (ed.), Transcaucasia: Nationalism and Social Change: Essays in the History of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (1983), includes analyses of topics from the early origins of Caucasian civilization to the population redistribution and new ethnic balances in the last quarter of the 20th century. Suzanne Goldenberg, Pride of Small Nations: The Caucasus and Post-Soviet Disorder (1994); and Shireen T. Hunter, The Transcaucasus in Transition: Nation-Building and Conflict (1994), trace the history of regional conflict and its contemporary impact. Ronald Grigor Suny The economy Resources Transcaucasia's substantial natural resources have favoured economic development. The geologically recent rock layers around the Greater Caucasus, notably in the Kura-Aras Lowland and beneath the Caspian Sea, contain oil- and natural-gas-bearing deposits. Metallic ores are associated with magmatic rocks thrust up from deep in the crust: magnetite iron occurs near Dasksn in Azerbaijan; copper and molybdenum are found in several parts of the Transcaucasian upland; several metallic ores lie in the Greater Caucasus; and manganese is found near Chiat'ura in Georgia. Building materials include the rose-coloured tuffs (tufas) of Mount Aragats. The mineral-water springs of the Caucasus are widely renowned throughout the former Soviet Union. Nonferrous metals, hydrocarbons, and coal are extracted in large quantities. Agriculture Tea, citrus fruits, the oil-bearing tung tree, and bamboo are grown in the humid subtropical lowlands and foothills of Transcaucasia. Other areas produce tobacco, corn (maize), grapes, and various fruits. Water from the numerous rivers of the Caucasus is used to irrigate the Kura-Aras Lowland and the lands around the middle Aras for the production of cotton, rice, and alfalfa (lucerne). Mulberry trees, grown along most irrigation canals, provide the basis for silkworm culture and a silk-making industry. In the higher elevations of the Caucasus, the primary activity is livestock raising (mainly sheep and cattle), although the people there also grow some mountain crops and pursue domestic crafts. The land Physiography Trending generally from northwest to southeast, the Caucasus Mountains consist of two rangesthe Greater Caucasus in the north and the Lesser, or Little, Caucasus in the south. The watershed of the Greater Caucasus, the backbone of the system, traditionally has been part of the line dividing Europe and Asia, but the whole region has been so subject to Asian influences that there is now general agreement in assigning the ranges to Asia. The Greater Caucasus marks the northern boundary of Transcaucasia and extends for approximately 750 miles (1,200 kilometres) southeastward across the Caucasian isthmus from the Taman Peninsula, which separates the Black Sea from the Sea of Azov, to the Abseron Peninsula, which juts into the Caspian Sea east of the oil-rich port of Baku (BakiaA The southern slopes of the Greater Caucasus are steeper than the northern. The middle of the system is comparatively narrow, but its western and eastern ends have widths of 100 miles or more. The main axis of the system contains Mount Elbrus, which at 18,510 feet (5,642 metres) is the range's tallest peak; Mount Dombay-Ulgen (Dombay-Yolgen; 13,274 feet) in the west; Mounts Shkhara, Dykhtau, and Kazbek, all more than 16,000 feet, in the central region; and Mounts Tebulosmta and Bazardyuzyu, both more than 14,600 feet, in the east. Spurs tonguing north and south from the main axis occasionally reach elevations approaching 10,000 feet. The highest parts carry permanent mountain glaciers, the shrunken remains of Quaternary ice fields and glaciers. South of the Greater Caucasus, on the Black Sea coast, lies the Kolkhida alluvial plain, the site of ancient Colchis. South of the range on the Caspian side the Shirak Steppe, between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus ranges, falls sharply into the Kura-Aras (Kr-Araz) Lowland, an extensive depression in the centre of which the Kura (Kr, or Mtkvari) River receives its major right-bank tributary, the Aras (Araks, or Araz) River. To the northeast the hills of southeastern Kobustan separate the Kura-Aras Lowland from the Abseron Peninsula; and to the extreme southeast the narrow Lnkran Lowland extends to the south between the Caspian Sea and the Talish (Talysh) Mountains, which reach elevations exceeding 8,000 feet. West of the Kura-Aras Lowland rises the Lesser Caucasus Range, which is extended southward by the Dzhavakhet Range and the Armenian Highland, the latter straddling the frontier with Turkey. East of Lake Sevan in the eastern Lesser Caucasus, the highest peaks rise above 12,000 feet, while Mount Aragats (Alaghez), the highest peak in the range, rises west of the lake to 13,418 feet. From their western sources in the Armenian Highland, the Kura and Aras rivers both flow around the Lesser Caucasusthe Kura to the north of the range and the Aras to the southbefore their confluence in the east. Geology The greater part of Caucasia originated in the vast structural downwarp in the Earth's crust known as the Alpine geosyncline, dating from the Late Oligocene Epoch (about 30 to 23.7 million years ago), and the region thus reflects some of the same structural characteristics as the younger mountains of Europe. Structurally the Greater Caucasus represents a great anticline (upfold) uplifted at the margin of the Alpine geosyncline about 25 million years ago and subsequently altered by fresh cycles of erosion and uplift. Hard, crystalline, metamorphosed rocks such as schists and gneisses, as well as granites that predate the Jurassic Period (i.e., older than 208 million years), have been exposed at the core of the western sector, while softer, clayey schists and sandstones of Early and Middle Jurassic origin (from 208 to 163 million years ago) have emerged in the east. The spurs of the Greater Caucasus are composed of younger limestones, sandstones, and marls. The Greater Caucasus is a zone of crustal instability, as evidenced by several extinct volcanoes (e.g., Mount Elbrus) and the earthquakes, often locally disastrous, that disturb the area. The Kolkhida and Kura-Aras lowlands are both structural depressions linked to the Alpine geosyncline; the former is related to the formation of the Black Sea, the latter to that of the Caspian. In Kolkhida the overall surface of deposits laid down less than 25 million years ago is broken, at the foot of the mountains, by the protrusion of slightly older sedimentary rocks. Younger rocks also underlie the Kura-Aras Lowland. The structures of the Lesser Caucasus, of the Talish Mountains, and of the Dzhavakhet-Armenian ranges likewise originated from folds uplifted from the Alpine geosyncline. While the western sector of the Lesser Caucasus and the Talish in the far southeast are formed chiefly from deposits laid down about 50 million years ago in the downwarp episode of the geosyncline, the central and eastern sectors of the Lesser Caucasus consist of sedimentary strata intruded in places with volcanic rock that are at least twice as old. Geologically recent volcanism and contact metamorphism (the intrusion of molten material and its effects on preexisting strata) have everywhere played a great role in shaping the landscape. The folded base of the Dzhavakhet Range and of the Armenian Highland, for example, is masked by volcanic debris from eruptions that occurred in the Tertiary and Quaternary periods (i.e., the past 66.4 million years), but to the east much older rocks emerge between the middle course of the Aras and the latitude of Lake Sevan. The people Caucasia has long played a major role as a link between Europe and Asia, and through it the culture of ancient Mesopotamia spread northward. Indigenous cultures also arose; Transcaucasia was one of the most ancient centres of bronze working from the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. Autochthonous peoples of the Caucasus are mentioned by Herodotus and by later writers such as Strabo. In the centuries between preclassical antiquity and the 14th century AD, Caucasia underwent successive invasions by various peoples, including Scythians, Alani, Huns, Khazars, Arabs, Seljuq Turks, and Mongols. Contacts were also maintained with the Mediterranean world. This history of invasions and distant contacts has left its imprint on the culture of the peoples of Transcaucasia. Middle Eastern influences, in particular, disseminated Iranian languages on the one hand and Christian and Islamic religion on the other. The later history, beginning with a long period of rivalry between Ottoman Turkey and Iran, is marked by the advance of Russian culture, which penetrated farther and farther into Caucasia from the 16th century onward. Throughout this process, individual ethnic groups, under pressure from stronger neighbours, took refuge in the ravines of the mountain ranges to preserve themselves in isolation. More than 50 different peoples inhabit Transcaucasia; these groups have cultures extending back to ancient times. Since antiquity the Caucasus has been known for its large number of distinct languages; Arab geographers called the region Jabal Al-Alsun (Mountain of Language). Several language families are represented in the region. Of the Indo-European languages, Armenian (which is the official language of Armenia) has the greatest number of speakers. Greek is spoken in parts of southern Georgia, and several languages of the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European are also spoken. The latter consist of Ossetic (spoken in central Georgia), Talysh (spoken in far southeastern Azerbaijan, on the Caspian Sea), Kurdish (spoken in scattered areas in Armenia and southern Georgia), and Tat (spoken in northeastern Azerbaijan). Azerbaijani (also called Azeri) is a member of the Turkic branch of Altaic languages and has the largest number of speakers of any of the languages of Transcaucasia. Another Turkic language, Anatolian Turkish, is spoken in a few communities in Azerbaijan. The rest of the languages spoken in the region are classified as Caucasian languages, which fall into three typologically well-defined families: the Abkhazo-Adyghian, or Northwest, Caucasian languages; the Nakho-Dagestanian, or Northeast, languages; and the Kartvelian, or South Caucasian, languages. A genetic relationship between the Northeast and Northwest languages seems probable, but the absence of regular sound correspondences between North and South Caucasian languages strongly suggests that the two northern divisions form a family separate from the southern group. Abkhaz, numerically the most important Abkhazo-Adyghian language of Transcaucasia, is spoken chiefly in Abkhazia republic, Georgia; and Abaza, which is closely related to Abkhaz, is spoken along a portion of the coast of the Georgian republic of Ajaria. The Nakho-Dagestanian languages are a complex group, sometimes subdivided into Nakh, or Central, languages and Dagestanian, or East Caucasian, languages. The only Nakh language of Transcaucasia is Bats, an unwritten language with only a few thousand speakers in north-central Georgia. The Dagestanian languages spoken in this region are Lezgian, Avar, Kryz, Udi, Khinalug, and Budukh, all but Avar being categorized as Lezgian languages. Chief among the Kartvelian languages is Georgian, which has the largest number of speakers of any Caucasian language. The Georgian language is also distinguished by a literary tradition that dates to the 5th century AD. The other Kartvelian languages are Mingrelian, Laz, and Svan, each of which is spoken mainly in Georgia.