Hunnic invasions induced by climate change

Research suggests that climatic changes may have forced the Huns to leave their homelands and adapt a more predatory behavior.

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The study, published today in the Journal of Roman Archaeology argues that extreme drought spells from the 430s—450s CE disrupted ways of life in the Danube frontier provinces of the eastern Roman empire, forcing Hunnic peoples to adopt new strategies to 'buffer against severe economic challenges'.

New climate data reconstructed from tree rings by Prof Büntgen and colleagues provides information about yearly changes in climate over the last 2000 years. It shows that Hungary experienced episodes of unusually dry summers in the 4th and 5th centuries. Hakenbeck and Büntgen point out that climatic fluctuations, in particular drought spells from 420 to 450 CE, would have reduced crop yields and pasture for animals beyond the floodplains of the Danube and Tisza.

We found that periods of drought recorded in biochemical signals in tree-rings coincided with an intensification of raiding activity in the region."

Recent isotopic analysis of skeletons from the region, including by Dr. Hakenbeck, suggests that Hunnic peoples responded to climate stress by migrating and by mixing agricultural and pastoral diets.

But the study also argues that some Hunnic peoples dramatically changed their social and political organization to become violent raiders.

 

https://phys.org/news/2022-12-drought-attila-huns-roman-empire.html

Yeah, the same topic popped up yesterday in the feeds from ancient-origins 

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/attila-0017671

I think we've touched this topic too on the forum not so long ago

https://www.unrv.com/forum/topic/19390-a-drought-caused-the-hunnic-migration/?tab=comments#comment-131753

I find the claim a little dubious. The initial push for Huns migration was seemingly due to Chinese who defeated them and drove them away from their boundaries. It could have been that the Huns were goaded to move further westwards by some climate factors, but as we know unlike Central Asia Europe has been mostly covered by forests and has always lacked rich grasslands for horses to graze (with the exception of Alps region, I suppose).       

Although the proponents of the theory may find some support for it in the books by Soviet historian Lev Gumilyov: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Gumilyov

Gumilyov wrote the whole book tracing the roots of Xiongnu (who lately transformed into Huns in Europe). Attached below is a screenshot in Russian highlighting the same idea of climate change that affected Huns migration (it's taken from the book which is missing in the list of references for Gumilyov in the above English wiki-article). I actually saved the screenshot years ago because I found it ridiculously naive 😁

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"The initial push for Huns migration was seemingly due to Chinese who defeated them and drove them away from their boundaries."

Thank you for reading my post.

I am amazed at that relative ease in which the Hunnic forces sliced through the Germanic tribes. I find it hard to believe, however, that somehow the Chinese would have been able to quickly and totally expel these same Huns from their lands. China, at that time, was a weakened state that was experiencing its own internal revolts and instability. 

Another theory, therefore, emerges about the origins of the Huns.

The possibly genetically-related tribes to Huns, the Xiongnu, may be the answer. The Xiongnu were quite successful with their incursions into Northern China for centuries. The Xiongnu were a formidable force five hundred years before Atilla invaded Western Europe. By AD 48, as a result of succession battles, the weakened Xiongnu separated into a Northern and Southern Kingdoms. There is some suggestion that the Northern Xiongnu later evolved into the Hunnic coalition after being subjugated by the Chinese.

The most interesting theory from Chinese scholars, therefore, is that the defeated Northern Xiongnu eventually migrated west to form the new Hunnic Empire. Here is a good summary video of the possible transformation of the Northern Xiongnu into the Huns that terrorized Europe:

14 hours ago, guy said:

I am amazed at that relative ease in which the Hunnic forces sliced through the Germanic tribes.

The same ease was demonstrated by Germanic Goths when they wiped out Scythians (who are often regarded as progenitors of proto-Russian Slavic tribes) and moved eastwards to settle in Crimea (Gothic language used to be spoken there seemingly till the 2nd half of the 19th century). There is an unspoken consensus among some modern Russian scholars that Slavic tribes formed a coalition with the Huns to drive Germanic Goths westwards from the territories that were once under Scythian/Slavic control. But frankly this all is rather imaginary because Slavs didn't have writing before 9th century. The truth however is that historically Slavs were much easier and more willingly to enter a coalition with the Asians than with the Europeans. Even during the WW2 about 8% of the Soviet military losses were soldiers of the Soviet Turkic minorities.

There is no evidence that Huns ever were close to any of the Chinese kingdoms that existed at the time (in the 4th-5th centuries, there were many kingdoms in what today we call China: