The history of Chechnya may refer to the history of the Chechens, of their land Chechnya, or of the land of Ichkeria.
Chechen society has traditionally been organized around multiple autonomous local clans, called taips. The traditional Chechen saying goes that the members of Chechen society, like its taips, are (ideally) "free and equal like wolves".Jaimoukha. Chechens. Page 83Gammer, Moshe. The Lone Wolf and the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Rule. London 2006. Page 4
Prehistoric and archeological finds The first known settlement of what is now Chechnya is thought to have occurred around 12500 BCE, in mountain-cave settlements, whose inhabitants used basic tools, fire, and animal hides. Traces of human settlement go back to 40000 BCE with cave paintings and artifacts around Lake Kezanoi.
The ancestors of the Nakh peoples are thought to have populated the Central Caucasus around 10000–8000 BCE. This colonization is thought by some (including E. Veidenbaum, who cites similarities with later structures to propose continuityJaimoukha. Chechens. Page 23-28.) to represent the whole Eastern Caucasian language family, though this is not universally agreed upon. The proto-language that is thought to be the ancestor of all Eastern Caucasian ("Alarodian") languages, in fact, has words for concepts such as the wheel, so it is thought that the region had intimate links to the Fertile Crescent (many scholars supporting the thesis that the Eastern Caucasians originally came from the Northern Fertile Crescent, and backing this up with linguistic affinities of the Urartian and Hurrian languages to the Northeast Caucasus). According to Johanna Nichols, "the Nakh–Dagestanian languages are the closest thing we have to a direct continuation of the cultural and linguistic community that gave rise to Western civilization."
Kura-Araxes culture
Towns were built in the area that is now Chechnya as early as 8000 BCE. Pottery, too, came around the same time, and so did stone weaponry, stone utensils, stone jewelry items, etc. (as well as clay dishes). This period was known as the Kura-Araxes culture. Amjad Jaimoukha notes that there was a large amount of cultural diffusion between the later Kura-Araxes culture and the Maikop culture. The economy was primarily built around cattle and farming.
Kayakent culture The trend of a highly progressive Caucasus continued: as early as 3000–4000 BCE, evidence of metalworking (including copper) as well as more advanced weaponry (daggers, arrow heads found, as well as armor, knives, etc.). This period is referred to as the Kayakent culture, or Chechnya during the Copper Age. Horseback riding came around 3000 BCE, probably having diffused from contact with Indo-European-speaking tribes to the North. Towns found in this period are often not found as ruins, but rather on the outskirts of (or even inside) modern towns in both Chechnya and Ingushetia, suggesting much continuity. There is bone evidence suggesting that raising of small sheep and goats occurred. Clay and stone were used for all building purposes. Agriculture was highly developed, as evidenced by the presence of copper flint blades with wooden or bone handles.
Kharachoi culture The term Kharachoi culture denotes the Early Bronze Age of Chechnya. Clay jugs and stone grain containers indicate a high level of development of trade and culture. Earlier finds show that extensive hunting was still practiced. There was a lack of pig bones, demonstrating that the domestication of pigs hadn't yet spread into the region. Iron had replaced stone, bronze and copper as the main substance for industry by the 10th century BCE, before most of Europe or even areas of the Middle East.
Koban culture
The Koban culture (the Iron Age) was the most advanced culture in Chechnya before recorded history, and also the most well-known. It first appeared between 1100 and 1000 BCE. The most well-studied site was on the outskirts of Serzhen-Yurt, which was a major center from around the eleventh to the seventh centuries BCE.
The remains include dwellings, cobble bridges, altars, iron objects, bones, and clay and stone objects. There were sickles and stone grain grinders. Grains that were grown included wheat, rye and barley. Cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys, pigs and horses were kept. There were shops, where artisans worked on and sold pottery, stone-casting, bone-carving, and stone-carving. There is evidence of an advanced stage of metallurgy. There was differentiation of professionals organized within clans. Jaimoukha argues that while all these cultures probably were made by people included among the genetic ancestors of the Chechens, it was either the Koban or Kharachoi culture that was the first culture made by the cultural and linguistic ancestors of the Chechens (meaning the Chechens first arrived in their homeland 3000–4000 years ago). However, the majority of historians disagree, holding the Chechens to have lived in their present-day lands for over 10000 years.
Theories on origins
Migration from the Fertile Crescent c. 10000–8000 BCE Johanna Nichols holds that the Nakh were descended from extremely ancient migrations from the Fertile Crescent to the Caucasus, perhaps due to population or political pressures back in the Fertile Crescent.
Ancient Georgian historian Giorgi Melikishvili posited that although there was evidence of Nakh settlement in the Southern Caucasus areas, this did not rule out the possibility that they also lived in the North Caucasus.Jaimoukha, Amjad. The Chechens: A Handbook. Page 24. "Also, the Georgian historian G. A. Melikishvili maintained that the formation of the Vainakh took place much earlier than the first century BC. Though evidence of Nakh settlement was found on the southern slopes of the Caucasus in the second and first millennia BC, he did not rule out the possibility of their residence in the northern and eastern regions of the Caucasus. It is traditionally accepted that the Vainakh have existed in the Caucasus, with their present territory as a nucleus of a larger domicile, for thousands of years, and that it was the ‘birthplace’ of their ethnos, to which the peoples who inhabited the Central Caucasus and the steppe lands all the way to the Volga in the northeast and the Caspian Sea to the east contributed."
Invasion of the Cimmerians In the 6th and 7th centuries BCE, two waves of invaders—first the Cimmerians, who then rode south and crushed Urartu, and then the Scythians, who displaced them—greatly destabilized the Nakh regions.Jaimoukha. Chechens. Page 26 This became a recurring pattern in Chechen history: invasion from the north by highly mobile plains people, met with fierce and determined resistance by the Chechens, who usually started out losing but then reversed the tide.
Invasion of the Scythians The Scythians started to invade the Caucasus in the 6th century BCE, originally coming from Kazakhstan and the Lower Volga region.Anchabadze, George. The Vainakhs. "The Iranian-speaking Scythian tribes, who came from the steppes of the Lower Volga and present Kazakhstan, first pounced on the population of the Northern Caucasus and, having overcome their resistance, penetrated through the Southern Caucasus and set off the plundering raids on the states of Front Asia." The Cimmerians had already pushed the Nakh south somewhat off the plains, and the Scythians forced them into the mountains. Vainakh presence in Chechnya on the Terek almost completely vanished for a while, and Scythians penetrated as far south as the Sunzha. Considering that the Nakh were dependent on the rivers for their very survival, this was a desperate situation. However, soon, Vainakh settlement reappeared on the Terek in Chechnya. In some areas, the Scythians even penetrated into the mountains themselves.Jaimoukha. Chechens.26 In the 5th century BCE, Herodotus noted that the Scythians were present in the Central North Caucasus.
After the first wave of Scythian assaults, the Nakh began returning to the fertile lowland plains and ousting the invaders, but new waves of Scythians (Sarmatians) arrived, pushing them back into the mountains.Anchabadze. Vainakhs. Page 19 Some of the names of tributaries of the Sunzha and Terek rivers make reference to the fierce conflict for control of the rivers: the Valerik (or the Valarg) meant "the dead" in Nakh and the Martan came from a Sarmatian root and meant "the river of the dead".
It is not known whether this was the first dominant presence of the Ossetians in their modern territory or whether the primary population was still Zygii/Nakh and that it was only after the later Sarmatian invasion that Scythian people became dominant. Amjad Jaimoukha, notably, supports the hypothesis that the Ossetians were the product of multiple migrations. Thus, if this is the case, then the Scythians settled roughly North Ossetia, effectively cutting the Zygii nation in half (Herodotus noted that Zygii were still present west of the Scythians in the Caucasus). The eastern half, then, became the Vainakhs. In other areas, Nakh-speaking peoples and other highlanders were eventually linguistically assimilated by the Alans and merged with them, eventually forming the Ossetian people.Jaimoukha.Chechens. Page 28: "The Alans allied themselves with kindred nations, remnants of the Sarmatians, and formed close relationships with the local peoples, assimilating a part of the Nakh population.""In the central part of the Northern Caucasus this process brought to the language assimilation of the aborigenes to the strangers, resulting in the formation of the Iranian-speaking Ossetian people."
There were various periods of good relations between the Scythians and the Nakh, where there was evidence of extensive cultural exchange.Jaimoukha.Chechens.28 The Nakh were originally more advanced in material culture than the Sarmatians/Scythians, the latter having not known of the potter's wheel or foundry work, while the Sarmatians/Scythians originally had superior military skills and social stratification.
Even after the invasion of the Scythians, the Nakh managed to revitalize themselves after it receded. However, they were now politically fractured, with multiple kingdoms, and modern Ossetia, consistent with the theory that they were largely displaced and that Scythians had become dominant there. The Nakh nations in the North Caucasus were often inclined to look south and west for support to balance off the Scythians. The Vainakh in the east had an affinity to Georgia, while the Malkh Kingdom of the west looked to the new Greek kingdom of Bosporus on the Black Sea coast (though it may have also had relations with Georgia as well).Jaimoukha. Chechens. Page 27 Adermalkh, king of the Malkh state, married the daughter of the Bosporan king in 480 BCE. Malkhi is one of the Chechen tukkhums.Натаев Сайпуди Альвиевич. ПРОБЛЕМА ЭТНОТЕРРИТОРИАЛЬНОЙ СТРУКТУРЫ ЧЕЧНИ В XVIII–XIX ВВ. В ИСТОРИЧЕСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ.Крупнов Е. И. Древности Чечено-Ингушетии. — Изд-во Академии наук СССР, 1963. — с. 256Марковин В. И. «В ущельях Аргуна и Фортанги». Москва, 1965 — с. 71Мамакаев М. «Чеченский тайп в период его разложения». Грозный, 1973.Шавхелишвили А. И. «Грузино-чечено-ингушские взаимоотношения». Тбилиси, 1992. — с.65, 72Н. Г. Волкова. Этнический состав населения Северного Кавказа в XVIII-начале XX века — Москва: Наука, 1974. — с.169Пиотровский Б. Б. История народов Северного Кавказа с древнейших времен до конца XVIII в. — Наука, 1988. — с.239
Hostilities continued for a long time. In 458 CE, the Nakh allied themselves with Georgian King Vakhtang Gorgasali as he led a campaign against the Sarmatians, in retribution for their raids.Anchabadze. Vainakhs. Page 21