The Huns and the Xiongnu

[Imperial Dave]

https://www.medievalists.net/2025/03/new-study-links-huns-to-xiongnu-through-dna-evidence/?utm_source=gravitec&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=Push%20Notification

Hopefully of interest...

[CarlL]

VERY!
Well spotted that man...

CarlL

[Imperial Dave]

I aim to please....

[Justin Swanton]

Interesting. It suggests that the Huns didn't look Asiatic at all, but more-or-less Slavic with perhaps a bit of the Asiatic in their features. Put Putin on a horse and you probably have it. [any contemporary innuendos absolutely not intended, but I think Putin is the perfect widely-known example. No?]

[Duncan Head]

See https://soa.org.uk/sm/index.php?topic=9019.0 - Dave's previous posting about another web article referring to the same study (and largely rewriting the same press release).

[Jim Webster]

Interesting. It suggests that the Huns didn't look Asiatic at all, but more-or-less Slavic with perhaps a bit of the Asiatic in their features. Put Putin on a horse and you probably have it. [any contemporary innuendos absolutely not intended, but I think Putin is the perfect widely-known example. No?]

yes well enough known to give us a feel for what you intend.
Certainly it looks as if they would be a mixed group. One interesting question would be was the Xiongnu group within the aristocracy large enough to remain looking like their ancestors or did even they look more western.
I remember reading that must of the 'Hunnic' names that have come down to us at Germanic, or perhaps names in another language but remembered by German speakers

[Andreas Johansson]

I remember reading that must of the 'Hunnic' names that have come down to us at Germanic, or perhaps names in another language but remembered by German speakers

Maenchen-Helfen's discussion of the Hunnic onomasticon is online. The very short version is that Hunnic names are most commonly Germanic, Iranian or Turkic.

This actually does suggest that "Hunnic proper" was Turkic, because this is the first time that language family turns up in Europe. The Germanic and Iranian names could easily have been picked up from subject peoples, but the Turkic ones are more easily explained as having been brought from Central Asia by the "original" Huns. (The Turkic Urheimat, near as we can tell, was in Mongolia.)

[CarlL]

These 'briefing' like summaries also fail to discuss:
1. in any population how likely are we to find the remains of those lesser members, rather than their 'elites' who had structures or memorials built for them? Thus how can we know the population if we only find the elites?
2. The briefings I have read fail to discuss or describe (if known) the funeral (or should that be funery) practices of these populations? eg did the general population bury, cremate, or (etc) their dead; and how much does this practice impact on what we find as remains that can be DNA sampled later?

The descriptions of Attila clearly suggest (if not describe) an Asiatic / Mongol like features, from what I have read. The Goth, Slav, or other Germanic allies are understood to be Caucasian, while remnants populations of Scythians, Sarmatians are Iran or Aryan Caucasian it appears.

The linked 'briefing' above makes a good point that it appears from exodus (from Chinese borders / Asiatic steppe) to arriving in the Danube or Pontic steppe was a multi generational migration lasting possibly 300 years for the Huns (so lots of opportunities for inter ethnic mixing) while other migrations like those of Avars, (or Turkic tribes, or Mongols) were much shorter and so brought a more uniform population to Europe.

So I see no 'revision' to what say E.A. Thompson summarised about our knowledge of Hun impact, they were different, and led a multi cultural pack, that challenged the Roman authorities (Western and Eastern). In terms of Roman experience, there was limited knowledge and a tendency to describe what they encountered in terms of what their history (or their shared history with Greece) had experienced previously: foreigners were barbarians, uncivilised and unwashed 'brutes' unlike themselves. (I stereotype of course.)

CarlL

[Jim Webster]

Maenchen-Helfen's discussion of the Hunnic onomasticon is online. The very short version is that Hunnic names are most commonly Germanic, Iranian or Turkic.

This actually does suggest that "Hunnic proper" was Turkic, because this is the first time that language family turns up in Europe. The Germanic and Iranian names could easily have been picked up from subject peoples, but the Turkic ones are more easily explained as having been brought from Central Asia by the "original" Huns. (The Turkic Urheimat, near as we can tell, was in Mongolia.)

I wonder if was one of the advantages the Huns had. They had 'evolved'  into being more 'European'. But yes it does look as if the Huns were Turkic speaking.

[Keraunos]

I wonder if was one of the advantages the Huns had. They had 'evolved'  into being more 'European'..."

Why might evolving into being more 'European' be an advantage?  Indeed, did anyone see themselves as being European as they battled for or against the Hunnic hordes?  Some may have seen themselves as Romans, but then what did they ever do for us?

[Jim Webster]

I wonder if was one of the advantages the Huns had. They had 'evolved'  into being more 'European'..."

Why might evolving into being more 'European' be an advantage?  Indeed, did anyone see themselves as being European as they battled for or against the Hunnic hordes?  Some may have seen themselves as Romans, but then what did they ever do for us?

I was meaning that with intermarriage, people outside the 'Huns' could have a family connection with them, however distant. Also when Huns spoke your language with the 'correct' accent it makes them easier to work with. It could be that for some peoples it meant that the Huns felt less foreign than the 'Romans'

[Andreas Johansson]

The "Attilanic" Huns in Pannonia certainly seem to have integrated closely with their Germanic subjects: almost all the known Huns with Germanic names belong here, both Hunnic and Gothic were spoken at Attila's court, and the archaeology suggests considerable cultural fusion.

Iranian elements are less prominent - Maenchen-Helfen thought the Alans had largely broken with the Huns by the time of the settlement in Pannonia, and the Sarmatian groups already settled along the Danube simply disappear from view in this period.

It's more-or-less the other way around out on the Pontic steppes, at least onomastically: many Huns bore Iranian names, but few Germanic. Apparently some Germanic-speakers did remain, to reappear much later as the Crimean Goths, but they turn completely invisible. The Alans remain in the North Caucasus - we know their modern descendants as the Ossetes.

(Turkic names are common among all Hunnic groups - another reason to think the Hunnic language was Turkic.)