Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Caucasus" in English language version.
*kau-meaning.
While Hodgson astutely perceived Caucasia's cross-cultural condition, subsequent research has exposed the region's long-term participation in the Iranian and wider Persianate world. This multifaceted association began in the Iron Age, survived the intensive Christianization of Caucasia, and continued until the annexation of Caucasian lands by the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century. (...) Above all, pre-modern Caucasia is characterized by its integration into the Iranian and Persianate socio-cultural world, the Iranian commonwealth, which extended from Central Asia to Anatolia and south to the Arabian Peninsula. Caucasia's active membership in this commonwealth began under the first "world empire" of the Achaemenids and survived both Christianization and the demise of the Sāsānian empire.
West of the Kura-Aras Lowland rises the Lesser Caucasus range, which is extended southward by the Dzhavakhet Range and the Armenian Highland, the latter extending southwestward into Turkey.
Caucasia includes not only the mountain ranges of the Caucasus proper but also the country immediately north and south of them. The land north of the Greater Caucasus is called Ciscaucasia (Predkavkazye, or "Hither Caucasia") and south of it is Transcaucasia (Zakavkazye, or "Farther Caucasia").
While Hodgson astutely perceived Caucasia's cross-cultural condition, subsequent research has exposed the region's long-term participation in the Iranian and wider Persianate world. This multifaceted association began in the Iron Age, survived the intensive Christianization of Caucasia, and continued until the annexation of Caucasian lands by the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century. (...) Above all, pre-modern Caucasia is characterized by its integration into the Iranian and Persianate socio-cultural world, the Iranian commonwealth, which extended from Central Asia to Anatolia and south to the Arabian Peninsula. Caucasia's active membership in this commonwealth began under the first "world empire" of the Achaemenids and survived both Christianization and the demise of the Sāsānian empire.
