Group

Huns

Nation Defunct 150 CE – 369 CE

The Huns are a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga, migrate into Europe c. AD 370 and build up a vast empire in Europe.

Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbors of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns, considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection.

However, there is no evidence for a direct connection between the dominant element of the Xiongnu and that of the Huns.

A contemporary mentions that the Huns had a language of their own; little of it has survived and its relationships have been the subject of debate for centuries.

According to predominant theories, theirs was a Turkic language.

Numerous other languages were spoken within the Hun pax including East Germanic.

Their main military technique was mounted archery.The Huns may have stimulated the Great Migration, a contributing factor in the collapse of the western Roman Empire.

They formed a unified empire under Attila the Hun, who died in 453; their empire broke up the next year.

Their descendants, or successors with similar names, are recorded by neighboring populations to the south, east, and west as having occupied parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia approximately from the 4th century to the 6th century.

Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century.

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Moran, J. (n.d.). Huns. History Atlas. Retrieved 14 October 2026, from https://www.historyatlas.com/groups/huns/

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