Caucasian Albania: A contact zone of sedentary population and their states with Eurasian nomadic people (V-VII centuries CE)

Abstract

The paper addresses the issue of antagonistic relationship between sedentary population and movable cattle breeders as experienced in Caucasian Albania - the buffer zone between big empires and Eurasian nomadic people in the early Middle Ages. Evidence of mediaeval Arab sources is provided to justify that the interests of ruling elite and population at the boundary with nomadic people might differ from those of big empires. Nomads used to help the borderland state to struggle for their independence vis-a-vis the expansion of the great powers. Political contacts between elites, cooperation in international trade and border guarding policy of superpowers of the time were the policies used to settle the Turkic nomads in the territory of Caucasian Albania since antiquity, but thiswas intensified during Sassanid ruling and continued at the time of Arab domination.