6th—3rd millennium BC
The Abadzekh legend tells of a natural disaster that struck their ancestors sometime after the turn of the 6th—5th millennium BC, which forced a large part of the people (apparently the plain-dwelling agriculturalists) to migrate to Asia Minor.
Comparison of the listed and other data (folklore, archaeological, and anthropological) allows us to consider the people buried in the Unakozovskaya Cave (an old man with three children) as representatives of the North Caucasian Hattians-Hatuuns, who possibly fled famine to Asia Minor and finally arrived at the Euphrates in 3750 BC under the leadership of Uar-Khatu.
However, this migration of the Hattians was a return migration. The fact is that according to archaeological materials of the Proto-Maykop culture of the Neolithic era, obtained from mountain sites in Adygea, already in the New Stone Age, approximately at the end of the 6th—5th millennium BC, a certain tribe migrated from Anatolia to the Western Caucasus, bringing with them from the south the traditions of the Asia Minor culture of Çatalhöyük: (hoes of the Sochi-Adler type, so-called flag-shaped arrowheads, pottery technology and techniques, skills of sedentary stationary agriculture, monumental painting style, etc.). This culture was the early agricultural component of the North Caucasian Proto-Maykop culture of the Copper-Stone Age. Folklore also confirms ancient migrations from Anatolia.
It is quite possible that the main occupation of the incoming tribe formed the basis of the ethnonym given to them by the local mountain pastoralists-sun-worshippers, the Athi. If we take into account the linguist Vyach. Ivanov's remark that the modern name of the former tribe "Khjatiquay" and the village "Khjatiquay" are linguistic monuments to the ancient ethnonym "Hatti," and take into account the fact of the constant emphasis in Hittite cuneiform texts on the double "t" in the words "hatti," "hett," "hit-tit," the abruptive of the Adyghe "t" could in ancient times have had such a graphic expression, then we can hypothetically derive the etymology of "Hatti." This is essentially a farmer — a grain-digger. In modern Adyghe, "хьэ" means barley, and in ancient times, apparently, it meant grain.
The arrival of farmers from Asia Minor in the Neolithic era does not mean the invasion of a completely foreign people. Linguists believe that the Proto-North Caucasian language, to which ancient Hattian belongs, has been spoken from time immemorial not only in the Near East, but even in the Eastern Mediterranean basin.
In the highly developed Maykop archaeological culture of the Early Bronze Age of the 3rd millennium BC, in which the Athi who came out to the Kuban plain from the mountains and foothills, the Hattians, and possibly the Proto-Aryans-Indo-Europeans in the form of the "Yamnaya" people of the Kuban region merged, a very expressive agricultural component is distinguished, similar to the culture of Alaca Höyük in Anatolia and which can safely be called "Hattian" in contrast to the pastoral "Athian."
Thus, a complex of sources on the ancient history of the Northwestern Caucasus, compiled from folklore, paleographic, archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic materials, makes it possible to operate with the ethnonyms "Athi" and "Hatti" already from the 4th millennium BC.
It is known that the half-millennium history of the Hittite state was full of drama. There were revolutions, changes of royal dynasties, and changes of social structures. This state formation was very heterogeneous. At the end of the 3rd millennium BC, their fellow tribesmen, who had previously gone to the North Caucasus and returned under the leadership of Indo-European leaders (as suggested by American researcher James Macqueen), returned to Asia Minor. These Indo-Europeans, together with the Caucasian Athi and North Caucasian Hattians, created the Maykop culture in the North Caucasus in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. European archaeologists consider the "kurgan tribes" to be representatives of this culture. In Anatolia, they continued the development of the Maykop culture. There it is called the Alaca Höyük culture. United with the Asia Minor Indo-Europeans, the Luwians and Palaic peoples, the Hittites (actually the Nesites, who adopted the ethnonym of the Hattians in the form "Hittite") seized power and created the Hittite Kingdom. Periodically, their dominance passed from the Indo-Europeans to the Hatto-Athi and back. When the Indo-Europeans ruled, autocracy was established. When power passed to the dynasty of kings of Caucasian origin, a confederation of tribes was formed. But all the time, religious authority was in the hands of the Hattian priests.
A similar picture is observed in the Northwestern Caucasus, where already at the end of the 5th—beginning of the 4th millennium BC, the Caucasians-Athi, Asia Minor farmers-Hattians, and Indo-Europeans-Yamnaya (apparently, the future Aryans) interacted. In the 4th and the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, the leading role in Ancient Adygea was played by the early Caucasian pastoralists, the Athi. And already, apparently, in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, a union of Maykop tribes arose here. This union was preceded by a long and difficult period of acclimatization of newcomers from Asia Minor (Proto-Hattians who appeared here in the 5th millennium, then Mesopotamians (Sumerians) around the middle of the 4th millennium BC, and another wave of Hattians at the end of the 4th or at the turn of the 4th—3rd millennium BC.
From the north, from the Kuban steppes, the nomadic pastoralists, the so-called Yamnaya people, one of the progenitors of the Indo-European language family, communicated with the ancient Caucasians-Athi. It is interesting to observe the interaction of these three or four ethno-cultural communities. Here it is also necessary to take into account the constant connections of the Athi with their southern neighbors in Transcaucasia. Since they, in turn, actively contacted the advanced Near Eastern civilizations, the North Caucasians constantly received positive impulses from them from the Natufian Chalcolithic culture, the Asia Minor culture of Çatalhöyük, and then Hacılar and the Mesopotamian cultures of Jemdet Nasr and Ubaid.
Very noticeable in the archaeology of the Northwestern Caucasus is the clash of two different ideologies of the fertility cult — the Caucasian and the Near Eastern. Among the Near Easterners, as well as among the Proto-Indo-Europeans, this cult was personified by the Great Goddess — the Mother Earth known under various names — under the name of Inanna (or Naina), Ishtar, Kubaba (Cybele). The Goddess was depicted as a naked, blooming woman (mainly in sculpture and especially often in small plastic art with lush forms).
According to Cinnioglu 2003, it is precisely haplogroup G2a-P15 that reflects the spread of Hattian culture to the Western Caucasus.
More: Hattians | Worldview of the ancient Athi and Hattians | Abeshla and Kashki | Hattian language | Stone Age in the Caucasus | Excavating Y-chromosome haplotype strata in Anatolia. Cinnioglu 2003
The Abadzekh legend tells of a natural disaster that struck their ancestors sometime after the turn of the 6th—5th millennium BC, which forced a large part of the people (apparently the plain-dwelling agriculturalists) to migrate to Asia Minor.
Comparison of the listed and other data (folklore, archaeological, and anthropological) allows us to consider the people buried in the Unakozovskaya Cave (an old man with three children) as representatives of the North Caucasian Hattians-Hatuuns, who possibly fled famine to Asia Minor and finally arrived at the Euphrates in 3750 BC under the leadership of Uar-Khatu.
However, this migration of the Hattians was a return migration. The fact is that according to archaeological materials of the Proto-Maykop culture of the Neolithic era, obtained from mountain sites in Adygea, already in the New Stone Age, approximately at the end of the 6th—5th millennium BC, a certain tribe migrated from Anatolia to the Western Caucasus, bringing with them from the south the traditions of the Asia Minor culture of Çatalhöyük: (hoes of the Sochi-Adler type, so-called flag-shaped arrowheads, pottery technology and techniques, skills of sedentary stationary agriculture, monumental painting style, etc.). This culture was the early agricultural component of the North Caucasian Proto-Maykop culture of the Copper-Stone Age. Folklore also confirms ancient migrations from Anatolia.
It is quite possible that the main occupation of the incoming tribe formed the basis of the ethnonym given to them by the local mountain pastoralists-sun-worshippers, the Athi. If we take into account the linguist Vyach. Ivanov's remark that the modern name of the former tribe "Khjatiquay" and the village "Khjatiquay" are linguistic monuments to the ancient ethnonym "Hatti," and take into account the fact of the constant emphasis in Hittite cuneiform texts on the double "t" in the words "hatti," "hett," "hit-tit," the abruptive of the Adyghe "t" could in ancient times have had such a graphic expression, then we can hypothetically derive the etymology of "Hatti." This is essentially a farmer — a grain-digger. In modern Adyghe, "хьэ" means barley, and in ancient times, apparently, it meant grain.
The arrival of farmers from Asia Minor in the Neolithic era does not mean the invasion of a completely foreign people. Linguists believe that the Proto-North Caucasian language, to which ancient Hattian belongs, has been spoken from time immemorial not only in the Near East, but even in the Eastern Mediterranean basin.
In the highly developed Maykop archaeological culture of the Early Bronze Age of the 3rd millennium BC, in which the Athi who came out to the Kuban plain from the mountains and foothills, the Hattians, and possibly the Proto-Aryans-Indo-Europeans in the form of the "Yamnaya" people of the Kuban region merged, a very expressive agricultural component is distinguished, similar to the culture of Alaca Höyük in Anatolia and which can safely be called "Hattian" in contrast to the pastoral "Athian."
Thus, a complex of sources on the ancient history of the Northwestern Caucasus, compiled from folklore, paleographic, archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic materials, makes it possible to operate with the ethnonyms "Athi" and "Hatti" already from the 4th millennium BC.
It is known that the half-millennium history of the Hittite state was full of drama. There were revolutions, changes of royal dynasties, and changes of social structures. This state formation was very heterogeneous. At the end of the 3rd millennium BC, their fellow tribesmen, who had previously gone to the North Caucasus and returned under the leadership of Indo-European leaders (as suggested by American researcher James Macqueen), returned to Asia Minor. These Indo-Europeans, together with the Caucasian Athi and North Caucasian Hattians, created the Maykop culture in the North Caucasus in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. European archaeologists consider the "kurgan tribes" to be representatives of this culture. In Anatolia, they continued the development of the Maykop culture. There it is called the Alaca Höyük culture. United with the Asia Minor Indo-Europeans, the Luwians and Palaic peoples, the Hittites (actually the Nesites, who adopted the ethnonym of the Hattians in the form "Hittite") seized power and created the Hittite Kingdom. Periodically, their dominance passed from the Indo-Europeans to the Hatto-Athi and back. When the Indo-Europeans ruled, autocracy was established. When power passed to the dynasty of kings of Caucasian origin, a confederation of tribes was formed. But all the time, religious authority was in the hands of the Hattian priests.
A similar picture is observed in the Northwestern Caucasus, where already at the end of the 5th—beginning of the 4th millennium BC, the Caucasians-Athi, Asia Minor farmers-Hattians, and Indo-Europeans-Yamnaya (apparently, the future Aryans) interacted. In the 4th and the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, the leading role in Ancient Adygea was played by the early Caucasian pastoralists, the Athi. And already, apparently, in the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, a union of Maykop tribes arose here. This union was preceded by a long and difficult period of acclimatization of newcomers from Asia Minor (Proto-Hattians who appeared here in the 5th millennium, then Mesopotamians (Sumerians) around the middle of the 4th millennium BC, and another wave of Hattians at the end of the 4th or at the turn of the 4th—3rd millennium BC.
From the north, from the Kuban steppes, the nomadic pastoralists, the so-called Yamnaya people, one of the progenitors of the Indo-European language family, communicated with the ancient Caucasians-Athi. It is interesting to observe the interaction of these three or four ethno-cultural communities. Here it is also necessary to take into account the constant connections of the Athi with their southern neighbors in Transcaucasia. Since they, in turn, actively contacted the advanced Near Eastern civilizations, the North Caucasians constantly received positive impulses from them from the Natufian Chalcolithic culture, the Asia Minor culture of Çatalhöyük, and then Hacılar and the Mesopotamian cultures of Jemdet Nasr and Ubaid.
Very noticeable in the archaeology of the Northwestern Caucasus is the clash of two different ideologies of the fertility cult — the Caucasian and the Near Eastern. Among the Near Easterners, as well as among the Proto-Indo-Europeans, this cult was personified by the Great Goddess — the Mother Earth known under various names — under the name of Inanna (or Naina), Ishtar, Kubaba (Cybele). The Goddess was depicted as a naked, blooming woman (mainly in sculpture and especially often in small plastic art with lush forms).
According to Cinnioglu 2003, it is precisely haplogroup G2a-P15 that reflects the spread of Hattian culture to the Western Caucasus.
More: Hattians | Worldview of the ancient Athi and Hattians | Abeshla and Kashki | Hattian language | Stone Age in the Caucasus | Excavating Y-chromosome haplotype strata in Anatolia. Cinnioglu 2003
6000—5000 BC Impressed Ware culture