Comments on Migrations across the Caucasus
Ancient DNA has made it possible to uncover migrations across the Caucasus in the distant past. Some of these movements were expected, while others were surprising. Despite these advances, we still know relatively little about more recent migrations.
The limited amount of data currently available nevertheless allows us to suggest two younger migration events.
The first is connected with the rise of the Koban culture in the North Caucasus, which appears to have been influenced by populations from the southwestern regions of the Caucasus around 1400–1200 BCE, more specifically by the Colchian archaeological culture in western Georgia. Scholars had long suspected such a connection, and there were even proposals to unite the Koban and Colchian cultures into a broader cultural complex.
However, migration from the south does not mean that the Koban culture was exclusively southern in origin. It also included a local population component. Thus, it was most likely multiethnic, although the southern component appears to have been Kartvelian. Later, around 600 BCE, the Scythians conquered the Koban cultural area, and Iranian-speaking Alans began to emerge there. The Scythians also crossed the Caucasus, but so far we do not have any ancient DNA samples from the South Caucasus that can be securely linked to them.
The second possible migration across the Caucasus appears to have originated further south, most likely from historic Armenia. Based on data from eastern Georgia, it began during Late Antiquity (1st–4th centuries AD) and was associated with an increase in Anatolian-related ancestry. We now also have ancient DNA from the so-called Alan period in the North Caucasus, and quite surprisingly, some individuals carry Y-DNA lineages that most likely originated in historic Armenia.
[Read the update: for example, J2-Z6065>P81. We cannot fully rule out its earlier presence in the region, but current data do not provide evidence for that.] Two cases of L584 have also been identified. In Damgaard et al. (2018), one medieval sample from the Saltovo–Mayaki culture in the North Caucasus showed a strong Near Eastern genetic shift.
At this stage, we do not yet know what caused this migration or what the ethnic composition of these migrants was. However, the limited data from the Early Medieval period in the North Caucasus suggest that the migration did not stop in eastern Georgia and likely continued further north.
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