One thing is certain: Roman historians were not kind to their enemies! As for the Huns, they did not hesitate to ridicule ugliness and ugliness, while emphasizing their cruelty and insatiability. A completely negative portrait that has remained unchanged until today… But this way of describing “barbarian” behavior, fundamentally opposed to Roman civilization, has been part of the convention for nomadic peoples since at least the time of Herodotus, and is rather difficult to define. to prove archaeologically that the motives of the Huns, who came to challenge the Roman Empire all the way to Gaul in 451, were based solely on an appetite for gold, a thirst that seemed to be written into their genes!
What if these pastoral nomads from the Eurasian steppes had to change their behavior, ask instead two researchers from the University of Cambridge (UK)? Climate reconstruction based on tree rings in Central Europe does suggest that periods of severe drought may have pushed the Hunnic population to change their way of life: some replaced agriculture with pastoralism, while others resorted to violent acts, even looting. Their study, published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, suggests that climate change can affect economic, political, and social organization. And turn ordinary shepherds into formidable marauders.
Did the drought cause the Huns to invade the Roman Empire?
In the 4th and 5th centuries AD, nomads originating from the Eurasian steppes moved further west to partially settle in the Danubian region. These peoples, referred to by the global name of the Huns, were engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry in the area corresponding to modern Hungary, beyond the Roman limes (border, approx. ed.) formed by the Danube. But “as soon as they started dealing with the Roman Empire, they turned into fighting units,” says archaeologist Susanne Hakenbeck, who is joined by Sciences et Avenir.
One thing is certain: Roman historians were not kind to their enemies! As for the Huns, they did not hesitate to ridicule ugliness and ugliness, while emphasizing their cruelty and insatiability. A completely negative portrait that has remained unchanged until today… But this way of describing “barbarian” behavior, fundamentally opposed to Roman civilization, has been part of the convention for nomadic peoples since at least the time of Herodotus, and is rather difficult to define. to prove archaeologically that the motives of the Huns, who came to challenge the Roman Empire all the way to Gaul in 451, were based solely on an appetite for gold, a thirst that seemed to be written into their genes!
What if these pastoral nomads from the Eurasian steppes had to change their behavior, ask instead two researchers from the University of Cambridge (UK)? Climate reconstruction based on tree rings in Central Europe does suggest that periods of severe drought may have pushed the Hunnic population to change their way of life: some replaced agriculture with pastoralism, while others resorted to violent acts, even looting. Their study, published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, suggests that climate change can affect economic, political, and social organization. And turn ordinary shepherds into formidable marauders.
Did the drought cause the Huns to invade the Roman Empire?
In the 4th and 5th centuries AD, nomads originating from the Eurasian steppes moved further west to partially settle in the Danubian region. These peoples, referred to by the global name of the Huns, were engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry in the area corresponding to modern Hungary, beyond the Roman limes (border, approx. ed.) formed by the Danube. But “as soon as they started dealing with the Roman Empire, they turned into fighting units,” says archaeologist Susanne Hakenbeck, who is joined by Sciences et Avenir. A vicious circle, because the Hunnic armed groups eventually made themselves dependent on this one way of existence. “The old shepherd riders reinvented themselves as fighting bands led by a warlord or warrior king, on whom they depended to sustain themselves,” the researcher continues. be acquired from the Roman Empire in order to preserve these military units and the way of life to which they are accustomed.
The situation worsened especially from the late 430s, during the reign of the famous Attila, which led to regular attacks on Roman lands. The Huns would indeed invade the Empire both from the west – with the invasion of Gaul in 451 and from the north of Italy the following year – and from the east with the invasion of Thermopylae. But what were the motives for these repeated attacks, which historians consider one of the key factors in the fall of the Roman Empire? Thirst for gold, as the chroniclers say, or other factors rather related to the original way of life of these pastoral peoples? To find out, it seems necessary to establish whether changes, such as climate change, could have affected their way of life.
Historically recorded places of activity of the Huns. The arrows indicate the alleged routes of the main Hunnic raids. © David Redhouse
Especially hot summer in the 5th century.
In order to know the climate of Central Europe in the 5th century, the geographer Ulf Büntgen measured the stable isotopes of carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) in the growth rings of oaks (Quercus) that grew in regions corresponding to the modern Czech Republic. and southeast Bavaria. The resulting data table points very clearly to several known episodes of extreme drought: one during the Little Ice Age of Late Antiquity (late 6th century), another during the Middle Ages (10th century), a third during the Renaissance (1490-1540), and the last, which starts from 1970. A closer analysis of AD 350-500 also reveals that the summer became more and more dry from 420, and that several episodes follow one another between 430 and 450, that is, during the reign of Attila. This particularly dry summer may have affected areas designated for agriculture and grazing that were not on floodplains, the researchers said.
A: Reconstructed drought intensity index from June to August, from 75 B.C. to 2018 AD and B: close-up of the reconstructed June to August drought intensity index, 350 to 500 AD; vertical stripes indicate Hunnic raids (in red) and treaties (in black) signed with the Roman Empire, as documented in historical sources. © Ulf Büntgen
What was the way of life of the Huns?
To confirm that the Hunnic population did indeed rely on agriculture and pastoralism to support themselves, Susanne Hakenbeck examined the skeletons of five cemeteries dating from the 5th century, located on both sides of the limes: in the province of Pannonia and on the great Hungarian plain. river Tisza. It appears that all of these people were described as having a mixed diet. As the archaeologist explains to us, this means that “some people have significantly changed their diet during their lives. This shows that farming and pastoralism were not mutually exclusive strategies; on the contrary, people buried in the same communities used them flexibly. pastoralism could be a mutually beneficial strategy that was not limited to individual ethnic groups.”
How climate can affect economic and political organization
If we take into account the relationship between climate change and increased attacks, we can offer a plausible explanation for the changing behavior of pastoralist populations. The most devastating raids really took place in 447, 451 and 452, the researchers note, precisely in an extremely dry summer.
We can also consider that the Huns were testing various strategies to respond to aridity that stifled their livelihood, analyzes Suzanne Hakenbeck: “As the isotope data proves, some have shown great flexibility in their subsistence methods. Groups and individuals have moved from farming to pastoralism. , often quite quickly. This could have been a strategy to respond to climatic and environmental changes, as well as wars and agricultural diversification, certainly safer than monoculture in times of climatic and economic, one might assume, formed the core of the Hunnic elite. the economic downturn may have forced Attila and other high-ranking figures to discover some gold, which was probably used to support military units and ensure loyalty among the elites.
Short term strategy
Should this historical study be cautioned when we have been in a period of drought since the 1970s? “No, I don’t think so,” the researcher replies, “because the social and economic situation of the 5th century was completely different from what we know today. But this historical example shows us that people respond to climate stress in complex and unpredictable ways, and that short-term decisions can have negative long-term consequences.”
Even if history remembers only these acts of violence, it is short-term survival that determines human behavior. And let the fate of the Huns serve as a lesson to us, because just a few decades after their settlement in Central Europe, they no longer existed as a separate entity: shortly after the death of Attila in 453, the Gepids and Ostrogoths during the Battle of Nedao and disappear from historical records from 470 -s years.