Black Sea–Caspian Steppe language and the Northeast Caucasian languages are related to Hurrian and Urartian. This implies that the mountaineers of the Caucasus have been in their present location for a very long time. According to the most common theory the Indo-European languages originated on the steppes north of the Caucasus and Black Sea. Some time before 3000 BC the Maikop culture appeared in Circassia and Kabardia. It is noted for its excellent gold and silver work. North on the steppe was the Yamnaya culture which was probably Indo-European. Around 1000 BC there was a bronze-age Koban culture in the Kabardian area which
Black Sea turquoise), Middle Persian / ("blue"), and New Persian ("blue"), as well as Ossetic (“dark gray"). The ancient Greeks, most likely those living to the north of the Black Sea, subsequently adopted the name and altered it to . Thereafter, Greek tradition refers to the Black Sea as the "Inhospitable Sea", , which is first attested in Pindar (). The name was considered to be "ominous" and was later changed into the euphemistic name "Hospitable sea", , which was also for the first time attested in Pindar. This became the commonly used designation for the sea in Greek. In contexts related