 Since then there has been a systematic reconstruction and rebuilding process, though sporadic fighting continues to take place in the mountains and southern regions into 2019.According to Leonti Mroveli, the 11th-century Georgian chronicler, the word Caucasian is derived from the Vainakh ancestor Kavkas.According to George Anchabadze of Ilia State University American linguist Johanna Nichols "has used language to connect the modern people of the Caucasus region to the ancient farmers of the Fertile Crescent" and her research suggests that "farmers of the region were proto-Nakh-Daghestanians."