18-20. Yüzy？llarda Kuzey Kafkasya’da Da？lardan Düzlüklere Yerle？me [Migrations from the Mountains tо Plains in the North Caucasus in The XVIII—XX Centuries]

The migrations of the inhabitants of the North Caucasus mountain belt to the plains that characterize the whole history of North Caucasian peoples, are traced back on the basis of written sources and field data. The main cause of migration from mountains to the plains was the need of land of the mountaineers. The solution of the land tenure problem of the peoples of the North Caucasus in the nineteen-twenties (the distribution of land strips from the plain villages among mountaineers) led to the extensive migration to the plains of the Ossetians, Ingushes and Karachais. In the later periods migrations from the mountains to the plains were stimulated mainly by the development of irrigation and intensive urbanisation processes