Below is an in-depth look into the question of the geographic context of "Gargareans" and "Sodi" mentioned in antiquity, and my take on it.

While researching my upcoming map, I came across several interesting clues about the names and locations of the Gargareans and Sodi. Due to having an empty space in modern Chechnya and Ingushetia, I was tempted to place the two ancient ethnonyms in this area, "ticking the box" for Nakhs, but things turned out more complicated.

For the Gargareans, the geographical and linguistic arguments reinforce each other. Strabo places them in the northern foothills of the Ceraunian Caucasus, in a discussion that opens with the mountainous country above Caucasian Albania. Armenian sources, meanwhile, associate the Gargars with Albania itself. Reading these accounts together points me toward the eastern North Caucasus adjoining Albania—particularly Dagestan—rather than farther west in Chechnya or Ingushetia. A North Caucasian location is therefore entirely compatible with the existing Rutul hypothesis: it is part of the geographical argument in its favour. Caucasian Albania and Chechnya/Ingushetia have no geographic continuity, while the Samur basin and the south Caucasian core of Albania do.

This geographical fit gives additional weight to the proposed Rutul–Tsakhur interpretation of the name. Forms such as gargar/gagar have been compared with words meaning “relative” in Rutul, Tsakhur and Avar. Nakh comparisons also exist, but the attraction of the Rutul–Tsakhur hypothesis is that it combines the linguistic resemblance with a plausible location near Albania. The argument is not simply that the name sounds familiar: the proposed etymology and geographic location fit together.

Another potentially corroborating clue comes from the proposed Silvi/Chighb–Tsakhur connection. The name Chighb, also rendered Djigb, has been compared with the Tsakhur self-name Yikhby—йихъбы. Combined with the proposed identification of the Chighb with the Chilb and the classical Silvi, this would place another ancient population in the same Albanian–Dagestani setting. These identifications are debated, but their geographical implications are relevant to the Gargarean question.

Crucially, Pliny explicitly places the Lupenii (also known as Lpin in Armenian sources, Lpin = Alban?, hinting these were the foundational or most powerful people of Albania?) below the Silvi in his description of the mountains beyond Albania’s frontier. The connection between those two populations is therefore not based merely on similar names: the ancient account actually places them in relation to one another. Taking the Lupenii–Lpin identification and the eastern localization of the Gargareans together, the Silvi/Chighb, Lpin and Gargareans would form a plausible group of neighbouring populations around Albania’s northern and northwestern borderlands. This is precisely the sort of regional pattern that would strengthen the Rutul–Tsakhur hypothesis.

Against that reconstruction, identifying the Gargareans with Galgai, the Ingush self-name, seems geographically much less convincing to me. It places them farther west, away from the proposed cluster around Albania. The similarity between Gargar and Galgai is worth considering, but it does not by itself explain that geographical separation. The attraction of the eastern interpretation is that it offers a connected explanation of the names, their possible linguistic relationships and their likely neighbours. Gar could simply be a Proto-Caucasian substrate or an ancient wanderwort, also related to Georgian guar/gvar (though the latter also has a proposed Iranian etymology related to Armenian gawar), meaning that Galgai and Gargar have a common root not due to recently shared kinship or being the same people, but due to a deep and ancient linguistic connection through Proto-Nakh-Dagestani.