Azerbaijan > History of Azerbaijan

History of Azerbaijan

The favorable geographical position of the country, the rich nature, resources, nice climate always made Azerbaijan the country attractive not only for peaceful settlers. It also served as bait for the aggressive purposes of various tribes, peoples and empires like - Roman, Byzantine, Parthian, Arabian Caliphate, Great Orda of Chingis khan, the empire of Tamerlan, the Iranian empires, Osmanli Turk and Russian empires.

Each plot of land in Azerbaijan conceals numerous archeological evidence of that people had already lived here in prehistoric or ancient time. The climate, abundance of water resources served to the most ancient people that inhabited the area more than one million years ago (scientific materials on research of Azikh and Taglar caves).

Sometimes native people were escaping from various invaders and conflicts high in the mountains, where their shelters developed as separate rare settlements with isolated ethnic groups holding on their original way of life, sometimes keeping unique, unknown to modern science language till (villages. Khinalig, Budug, Griz ). The agriculture and cattle breeding started by the late Neolithic or early chalcolithic period alongside with the primitive building and pottery.

Then the archaic painted ceramics and schematic petroglythes (scientific materials on Gobustan, Gemigaya, Shakhtahti, Shomutepe, Alikepektepe, Kyultepe) had appeared. During the epoch of bronze (3-1 millenniums BC) the crafts connected to processing of metal (weapon) had appeared; products from bone, textiles, and painted ceramics were improved.

Connections with the peoples of Asia Minor and Near East (scientific materials on the Kur-Araz culture that were discovered in many places of modern Azerbaijan) intensively developed.

Then there appeared the first big tribal unions, that were mentioned in various, 9 them because of natural pressure and abundance. When Azerbaijan was included in the Russian Empire, Baku became the center of the province in 1859 with the average oil extraction of 200000- 300 000 poods or about 18000 tons per year.