ABSTRACT
From the most ancient times, the T erek valley - like that of the westerly flowing Kuban - seems to have been a focus of human activity. According to Strabo and other classical writers, the gorge at Daryal was fortified in the first century B.C. in the time of the Iberian Kingdom. 1 The rich archaeological finds at Koban, north of the gorge, and indications of early mining activities, witness a high cultura I development during the Bronze Age. If, as some historians believe, the difficulties of the terrain exclude the likelihood of the Terek valley having been used as a migration route during the period of the movements of the Cimmerians and the Scythians to the south of the Caucasus, infiltrations by small groups through the Daryal and over the higher cols of the central Caucasus were probably not uncommon. Indeed, the Huns appeared in Svaneti in the fourth century A.D.; and in the seventh century the Khazars came south to support Emperor Heraclius in an attack on Tiflis, then held for the Sassanids by the Iberian ruler, Stephanos.2
