The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe

Abstract

The Huns have often been treated as primitive barbarians with no advanced political organisation. Their place of origin was the so-called 'backward steppe'. It has been argued that whatever political organisation they achieved they owed to the 'civilizing influence' of the Germanic peoples they encountered as they moved west. This book argues that the steppes of Inner Asia were far from 'backward' and that the image of the primitive Huns is vastly misleading. They already possessed a highly sophisticated political culture while still in Inner Asia and, far from being passive recipients of advanced culture from the West, they passed on important elements of Central Eurasian culture to early medieval Europe, which they helped create. Their expansion also marked the beginning of a millennium of virtual monopoly of world power by empires originating in the steppes of Inner Asia. The rise of the Hunnic Empire was truly a geopolitical revolution.

Generalized Procrustes analysis of an ontogenetic series of modified crania: Evaluating the technique of modification in the Migration Period of Europe (4th–7th century AD)

“…The correlation we found between juvenile and adult modified cranial shape is unlikely to be due to genetic affiliation because diverse socio‐cultural groups were present in Hungary during the Migration Period. Historical sources mention the presence of Germanic groups, including Goths, Gepids, Langobards, Indo‐Iranian nomadic tribes such as Sarmatians and Alans, pre‐existing Romanized populations, as well as the Huns, who arrived in Hungary around 370 AD from the East and were themselves a conglomeration of Turkic and Scytho‐Sarmatian groups (Czeglédy, ; Hancock, ; Kelly, ; Kim, ; Sinor, ; Vaissière, ).…”

“…Putting together the historical references and archaeological evidence it is reasonable to assume that the Huns promulgated the practice of cranial modification in the region at this time. Their arrival in the Carpathian basin marks a dramatic and definitive turning point in the history of Hungary, the Roman Empire, and Europe (Kim, ; Sinor, ), setting in the motion the great migrations of the Germanic and Eurasian nomads and ultimately destabilizing the Roman Empire (Halsall, ; Heather, ). While historians are unclear on whether the Huns picked up the practice on their journey to Europe from other groups such as the Alans, or carried the practice from their roots in Mongolia and Inner Asia, it is certain that they had modified heads by the time they arrived in the Pontic steppe (Czeglédy, ; Maenchen‐Helfen, ; Sinor, ).…”

“…Upon their arrival, the practice became extremely prevalent in Hungary, modified crania making up to 80 percent of the crania in grave sites during the Migration Period (Fóthi, ; Hakenbeck, ; Kiszely, ; Pap, ; Torres‐Rouff & Yablonsky, 2005). Although the political dominion of the Huns in Hungary was fairly short‐lived, from about the 370s to the 460s (Kim, ; Vaissière, ), the practice of cranial modification in Hungary continued at least until the 7th c AD under the political sway of other nomadic groups such as the Goths, Gepids, Langobards, and Avars (Molnár, János, Szucs, & Szathmáry, ). The practice was widely adopted and maintained within the local community in Hungary as is evident from the incidence of modified crania from all age groups, neonates to senile adults, and an equal representation of males and females.…”

“…The proliferation of the practice during this period is associated with the Huns, nomadic warriors from Central Asia, who settled in the Carpathian basin around Hungary and Romania in the fourth century AD (Sinor, ), and practiced cranial modification as a unique marker of their social identity (Werner, ). The Huns are largely credited with destabilizing the Western Roman Empire and setting in motion the great migrations (Halsall, ; Kim, ; Sinor, ; Vaissière, ). They were so influential in European history that modified crania from archaeological sites in the Migration Period are attributed to the Huns (Anke, ; Huck, ; Maenchen‐Helfen, ; Schmidt, ; Werner, ), even in regions where historic records do not mention the presence of Huns and despite evidence for the practice prior to the arrival of Huns in Europe.…”

The Political Organization of Steppe Empires and their Contribution to Eurasian Interconnectivity: the Case of the Huns and Their Impact on the Frankish West

“…3 On the Hun-Xiongnu identification see La Vaissière (2005), 3-26. See also Kim (2013), 26-9, for an extended summary of scholarship in support of the identification. 4 For instance Kelly (2009), whose engaging book on the Huns, unfortunately uses the heading 'a backward steppe' as the title for one of its chapters,17-28.…”