by Very little is known about Hunnic culture and very few archaeological remains have been conclusively associated with the Huns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns
What do we know about the Huns? The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe, between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia.
The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe, between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was part of Scythia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns
But what about before the 4th Century? where did those westward moving people come from?
This is where the Xiongnu come in to it
In the 18th century, the French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people, who were northern neighbours of China in the 3rd century BC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huns
The Xiongnu were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Chinese sources report that Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 209 BC, founded the Xiongnu Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu
Now one of the earliest references for the Xiongnu, comes from the Han dynasty, where a distinction was made in records of the grand historian linking the Xiongnu with the Chinese Huaxia people.
An early reference to the Xiongnu was by the Han dynasty historian Sima Qian who wrote about the Xiongnu in the Records of the Grand Historian (c. 100 BC), drawing a distinct line between the settled Huaxia people (Chinese) to the pastoral nomads (Xiongnu), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#Early_history
But whether the Xiongnu were originally inhabitants of China, or were originally merely migrants to China in the first place, the fact that they did indeed at one point in history, live in China, and were evicted from China by Qin, is not in dispute.
the Xiongnu in 215 BC when Qin armies evicted them from their pastures on the Yellow River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#State_formation
Now whilst the Xiongnu, entered in to many years of war with the Han Dynasty, with only the great wall of China seperating them
The Great Wall of China continued to serve as the line of demarcation between Han and Xiongnu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#T ... th_the_Han
There was civilians from the Xiongnu that remained within the Han society and played an important roll in Han politics, and even became rulers
The Southern Xiongnu that settled in northern China during the Eastern Han dynasty retained their tribal affiliation and political organization and played an active role in Chinese politics. During the Sixteen Kingdoms (304-439 CE), Southern Xiongnu leaders founded or ruled several kingdoms, including Liu Yuan's Han Zhao Kingdom (also known as Former Zhao), Helian Bobo's Xia and Juqu Mengxun's Northern Liang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#L ... hern_China
By 318, there was even courts regarded as Xion-Han courts
In 318, after suppressing a coup by a powerful minister in the Xiongnu-Han court, in which the emperor and a large proportion of the aristocracy were massacred), the Xiongnu prince Liu Yao moved the Xiongnu-Han capital from Pingyang to Chang'an and renamed the dynasty as Zhao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#L ... hern_China
By 431, the Xiongnu were considered to have fully assimiliated in to Han ethnicity
The Helian-Xia state was conquered by the Northern Wei in 428–31, and the Xiongnu thenceforth effectively ceased to play a major role in Chinese history, assimilating into the Xianbei and Han ethnicities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#L ... hern_China
Now, farther reasons to believe that the Xiongnu were infact the Huns, is regarding the first Chinese character in their name, which is similar to Hun
The sound of the first Chinese character (匈) in the name has been reconstructed as /qʰoŋ/ in Old Chinese.[66] This sound has a possible similarity with the name "Hun" in European languages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#Huns
Also, The second character (奴) appears to have no parallel in Western terminology.
The second character (奴) appears to have no parallel in Western terminology. Whether the similarity is evidence of kinship or mere coincidence is hard to tell. It could lend credence to the theory that the Huns were in fact descendants of the Northern Xiongnu who migrated westward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#Huns
Also this theory first arose when an 18th century french historian first realised the Chinese referred to a tribe called the Xiongnu, as Huns, or similar to Huns
The Xiongnu-Hun hypothesis originated with the 18th-century French historian Joseph de Guignes, who noticed that ancient Chinese scholars had referred to members of tribes associated with the Xiongnu by names similar to "Hun", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#Huns
And another example where both the Xiongnu and Huns shared the same name
Étienne de la Vaissière has shown that, in the Sogdian script used in the so-called "Sogdian Ancient Letters", both the Xiongnu and Huns were referred to as γwn (xwn), indicating that the two were synonymous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#Huns
But though i have put this in the conspiracy section, this theory is becoming more accepted by contemporary scholars
Although the theory that the Xiongnu were precursors of the Huns known later in Europe is now accepted by many scholars, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiongnu#Huns
So it is possible, and many contemporary scholars give it credence, that the Huns, that attacked Rome, were infact the Xiongnu, as either Huns in their own right, or a mixture of Hans, and possibly outright Chinese.
