Türkic Archeology

Links

http://www.centralasien.dk/joomla/images/journal/DSCA2008.pdf
Érdy, Miklós (2002): Three Archaeological Links between the Xiongnu and the Huns. THE TURKS (6 vols.), Vol. 1 Early Ages. Yeni Türkiye, Ankara 2002, pp. 306-317

Posting Introduction

 The Eastern Hun's trek from the Gansu steppes to the Pannonia steppes in some quarters is still disputed, primarily with an objective to sow doubts about their ethnic affiliation. The attempts to bring up possibilities and grey areas, with the ambiguities present in abundance because no modern state ”owns” Huns and strives to conduct a full-blown research, keep arising from time to time. The work of Miclosh Erdy (”The Türks”, Ankara, 2002) performed a badly needed task of assembling and compiling results scattered in multitude of archeological, art, and specialty works such as metallurgical studies. Though not a comprehensive monograph, the work is a significant step in detailing the stages and main directions of the Hun's advance, and it continued a stream of works that analyze the stages and intermediary states created by the Huns.

From our perch, we have a 20/20 hindsight at the events that were unfolding in the Eurasian steppes from the 1st c. BC to the 5th c. AD over a lifespan of 30 generations. That hindsight concentrates on the Hun's movement, and in a way it is blinding us to the life of the people who did not live to be in a perpetual migration. Like in any migration, only a few of those generations were forced to move, a bulk of the people stayed behind in the places where their predecessors already stayed for generations after their own move, and they would also stay there for the generations to come, likely in a less organized and defensible position. The migrations were not massive leaps into unknown, even in the event of a duress, the migration had a form of retreat from a danger zone to a remote area less accessible for the enemy within the same realm. Within a generation, the power structure would reconstitute itself in the new location, the new center retained some control over the old areas, and new areas were added to the reconstituted state, unintentionally creating a new safety zone which will be used if and when a new calamity comes. On the average, the periods of more active movement were falling after the periods of relative stability that lasted for about six generations, or 150 years. During the life of six generations, the new areas of the realm were habituated, the production cycle expanded to the new areas, they were included in the administrative and taxation system of the state, and became well known to the population within the state. Moreover, the local population of the new territories in most cases were the tribes ethnically related with the peoples of new center, they remained in place with their traditional societal hierarchy, and only experienced a need to accept a change in their allegiance to the center. Those unwilling to submit to the new center would move away, and become main actors in the events that would follow later. The offered diagrams serve as good illustrations to the stop-and go migration pattern, with pronounced territories of permanent settlement that produce high density of archeological finds.

Posting notes are in blue, or in blue boxes.

Hunnic Genetics

The Keyser-Tracqui et al. (2003) study examined remains of a 2000-year old kurgan cemetery in the Egyin Gol Valley of Mongolia, identified as belonging to the Eastern Huns. The limited results produced the following profile (noted in blue). D.K.Faux added to it a selection of Nordic and Asian samples, the closeness of the two better examined haplogroups R1a and Q between 2,000-years old Huns from the Egyin Gol and Norman descendents from Scandinavia and its colonies is as striking as the closeness between the old Huns and their modern Türkic descendents. The mutations from the Hunnic haplotype are shown in red, this table is sufficient to estimate the timespan to a common ancestor (TSCA) using accepted methodologies. These genes, shared by the Eastern Hunnic aristocracy and modern descendents from the Viking Normans corroborate the initial and final points of the Eastern Hun anabasis:

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