Ethnic groups in the Caucasus
Caucasians that speak languages belonging to the Indo-European language family: †Although the group does not have any inhabitants physically living anywhere in the Caucasus, genetic tests have proven their affinity to Caucasian populations and shown that their ancestors originated from the Caucasus.
Elsewhere in the region, they reside in Georgia (primarily Samtskhe–Javakheti, Tbilisi, and Abkhazia), and the Russian North Caucasus.
Pontic Greeks reside in Armenia (Lori Province, especially in Alaverdi) and Georgia (Kvemo Kartli, Adjara, the Tsalka, and Abkhazia).
Pontic Greeks had also made up a significant component of the South Caucasus region acquired from the Ottoman Empire (following the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano) that centred on the town of Kars (ceded back to Turkey in 1916).
Georgia and the former Russian South Caucasus province of Kars Oblast was also home to a significant minority of ethnic (Swabian) Germans, although their numbers have become depleted as a result of deportations (to Kazakhstan following World War II), immigration to Germany, and assimilation into indigenous communities.
Today they form a majority in the autonomous republic of Kalmykia on the western shore of the Caspian Sea.
In the Caucasus region, they live in Georgia, Russia (Dagestan), Turkey and previously in Armenia (before 1990).
Two hundred years ago, a person's loyalty was to their friends, kin, village and chief and not primarily to their language group.
In 1771 many returned to their original homeland and they contracted to their present location in the far northeast, Nogais temporarily taking their place.
North Slope: The western two thirds was occupied by Circassians – NWCLS divided into twelve or so tribes.
East of the Balkars were the Ossetians – Iranian speakers descended from the ancient Alans who controlled the future Georgian Military Road and had a growing Christian minority.
The Mountain Jews, who had a number of villages inland from the coast, spoke a form of Tat called Judeo-Tat.
This indicates that the Gilaki and Mazanderani ethnic groups are people that immigrated from the Caucasus region to what is now northern Iran.
Southward the coastal plain broadened and the population was Abkhazians – similar to the Circassians but under Georgian influence.
Southern Lowlands: The western two thirds were occupied by Georgians – an ancient Christian people with a unique language.
The Kurds were semi-nomadic shepherds with small groups in various places and concentrations in Kars province and Nakhchivan.
Ancient Anatolian alleles are common in the genomes of modern peoples in Georgia and east Turkey (i.e. Georgians from Meskheti province, Laz and Armenians).
Intensified immigration to the Caucasus during the early post-Last Glacial Maximum period explains the presence of these alleles.
