TheCaucasus region, on the gateway betweenSouthwest Asia andEurope, plays a pivotal role in thepeopling of Eurasia,possibly as early as during theHomo erectusexpansion to Eurasia, in theUpper Paleolithicpeopling of Europe, and again in the re-peoplingMesolithic Europe following theLast Glacial Maximum, and in the expansion associated with theNeolithic Revolution.
Dmanisi skull 5, found inDmanisi, Georgia, is among the earliestHomo erectus fossils, dated to 1.8 Ma.
Neolithic:
Bronze Age:
The South Caucasus gradually enters the historical period following theBronze Age collapse, seehistory of the Caucasus
Language groups in the Caucasus have been found to have a close correlation to genetic ancestry.[2]
A genetic study in 2015 by Jones et al. identified a previously unidentified lineage, which was dubbedCaucasian Hunter-Gatherer (CHG).[3] The study detected a split between CHG and so-called "Western European Hunter-Gatherer" (WHG) lineages, about 45,000 years ago, the presumed time of the originalpeopling of Europe. CHG separated from the "early Anatolian farmers" (EAF) lineage later, at 25,000 years ago, during theLast Glacial Maximum. (CHG was extrapolated from, among other sources, the genomes of two fossils from western Georgia – one about 13,300 years old (Late Upper Paleolithic) and the other 9,700 years (Mesolithic), which were compared to the 13,700 year-oldBichon man genome (found in Switzerland).
A genetic study in 2020 analyzing samples fromKlin-Yar communities, including theKoban culture, found that the ancient population had one sample of paternalHaplogroup D-Z27276. Most other paternal lineages in the study wereHaplogroup J1 andHaplogroup G-M285.[4]