Many Roman Citizens Joined The Huns And Preferred Their Nomadic Lifestyle – New Study

AncientPages.com - History books say that barbarian tribes of Huns, under their violent and cruel leader Attila, triggered the fall of one of history's greatest empires: Rome.

However, a new study conducted by researchers from the University of Cambridge brings some important results that seem to contradict traditional knowledge about the lifestyle of the Huns and Romans in these books.

Example of a modified skull, a practice assumed to be Hunnic that may have been appropriated by local farmers within the bounds of the Western Roman Empire. Credit: Erzsébet Fóthi, Hungarian Natural History Museum Budapest

Example of a modified skull, a practice assumed to be Hunnic that may have been appropriated by local farmers within the bounds of the Western Roman Empire. Credit: Erzsébet Fóthi, Hungarian Natural History Museum Budapest

On one side we have Roman accounts of the Huns, terrifying tribes led by Attila the Hun, who terrorized, devastated and killed on their way to successful conquest. On the other side, there is evidence that many ordinary Roman citizens joined the Huns and adopted their primitive way of life, along with their daily diet that contained fish and meat.

Arrival of the Huns and Behavior of Ordinary People

Researchers analyzed gravesite remains in the Roman frontier region of Pannonia – now Hungary dating to the 5th century AD.

Analysis of teeth and bones from the fifth century graves in Hungary reveals that some Roman citizens left their homesteads, abandoned agriculture to become Hun-like roaming herdsmen. Other remains from the same gravesites show a dietary shift indicating some Hun discovered a settled way of life and the joys of agriculture -- leaving their wanderlust, and possibly their bloodlust, behind.

The Huns may have brought ways of life that appealed to some farmers in the area, as well learning from and settling among the locals. She says this could be evidence of the steady infiltration that shook an empire.
"We know from contemporary accounts that this was a time when treaties between tribes and Romans were forged and fractured, loyalties sworn and broken. The lifestyle shifts we see in the skeletons may reflect that turmoil," says lead researcher Dr Susanne Hakenbeck, from Cambridge's Department of Archaeology, adding that new data show certain cooperation and coexistence of people living in the frontier zone.

Then, researchers compared this data to sites in central Germany, where typical farmers of the time lived, and locations in Siberia and Mongolia, home to nomadic herders up to the Mongol period and beyond.

Example of a modified skull, a practice assumed to be Hunnic that may have been appropriated by local farmers within the bounds of the Credit: Susanne Hakenbeck

Example of a modified skull. Credit: Susanne Hakenbeck

The results showed that all the Pannonian gravesites not only held examples of both lifestyles, but also many individuals that shifted between lifestyles in both directions over the course of a lifetime.

This was a way of life, which was not observed anywhere else in Europe at this time, according to Hakenbeck, who summarizes, saying:

"While Roman authors considered them incomprehensibly uncivilised and barely human, it seems many of citizens at the edge of Rome's empire were drawn to the Hun lifestyle, just as some nomads took to a more settled way of life."

Research is published - here

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