The Origin of the Huns: Revealing the Truth Behind a Legend

The Huns, according to ancient sources, came out of nowhere. But then, these ancient sources were largely Roman and, as far as the Romans were concerned, the Huns really did.

They first appear around the middle of the 4th century AD, harassing the northeastern frontiers of the Roman Empire. In 370 AD they suddenly appeared on the banks of the Volga in vast numbers, and over the next 50 years they established a huge empire, a new eastern front for Rome.

They reached their peak under their great and feared leader Attila, who led enormous war parties on raids first into Roman Gaul (modern France) and then the Italian peninsula itself. It was only the sudden and unexpected death of Attila the Hun on his wedding night that stopped them.

There are several competing theories as to where the Huns came from, even today. The Romans and Greeks had no idea, but over the years something like a “best guess” consensus has emerged based on an 18th century theory.

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The Huns are thought to be the same people as the Xiongnu mentioned in Chinese sources. These nomadic peoples had for centuries lived in the eastern Eurasian steppe on the Mongolian plateau, before suffering a devastating defeat by the Chinese Han dynasty in the 4th century.

It is thought the retreating remnants of these people formed the Huns of European history. The problem is a 300 year gap between the defeat of the Xiongnu and the rise of the Huns. And now a genetic analysis of Hunnish remains published in PNAS may throw new light on whether this gap can be bridged.

In the study a team of archaeologists, geneticists and historians led by Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology looked at hundreds of ancient genomes spanning an 800 year period from 200 BC to 600 AD. The genomes studied came from burials stretching from the Eurasian steppe all the way west to the Carpathian basin: the route the Xiongnu must have taken if they became the Huns.

Do the genes from these burials suggest a link to both the Xiongnu and the Huns? Are these the tombs of a people slowly heading westwards from China to Europe?

The answer is “sort of”. There is some evidence in the more opulent burials, both from the genes and the design of the tombs, that a core of elites may have fled westwards following the Xiongnu defeat, but there is no evidence of a wider link between the Xiongnu people and the Huns.

Instead it is possible this elite gathered a coalition as they went, arriving in Europe with an army they built on a road centuries long. The Hun genetic lineage is diverse and includes many different steppe peoples, suggesting that they may have travelled and arrived independently before finding common cause against the Romans. It could also explain why the Hunnish empire collapsed so quickly once its charismatic and successful leader Attila died.

Furthermore it seems that the Xiongnu core lost much of their cultural individuality on the road. Very few burials were found in Europe’s Hunnish empire completed in the Xiongnu fashion: their genes may have made the journey but their traditions did not. In fact, various new traditions appear to have appeared and died out amongst the people who would become the Huns during this time.

However there was something special about the Xiongnu who made the journey. Genetic analysis suggests a link with the very highest echelons of imperial society, and a connection to the finest Xiongnu burials back in China and Mongolia.

So, are Attila’s people the Xiongnu? Yes, and no. It seems that a Xjongnu elite did flee Han China and make it as far as Europe hundreds of years later. But these were only one of many peoples who collectively were not the Xiongnu.

They were the Hun.

Header Image: The Huns, Georges Rochegrosse, 1910. Source: Georges Rochegrosse / Public Domain.