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Drought encouraged Attila and his Huns to violently attack the Roman Empire in the 5th century, a new study suggests.
Researchers have analysed climate data based on tree rings that provides information about yearly changes in climate over the last 2,000 years.
Results reveal that Hunnish territory in Eastern Europe experienced episodes of unusually dry summers and ‘severe drought spells’ in the 430s and 450s.
This caused ‘inexplicable violence’ from the Huns towards the Romans, possibly to raid and steal their livestock or seize arable Roman land.
Attila (c.406 – 453) was king of the Huns, a nomadic Asian people who terrorised the Roman Empire. Drought encouraged Attila’s Huns to attack the Roman Empire, a new University of Cambridge study suggests
The Huns were the nomadic people of Central Asia and Eastern Europe. This map shows the territory under Hunnic control circa AD 450
Attila the Hun, considered one of the most powerful warriors in history, ruled the Huns (the nomadic people of Central Asia and Eastern Europe) from AD 434 until his death in 453.
Also known as the Scourge of God, he began his rule by slaughtering Goth tribes in modern-day Germany and Austria, then attacked the enfeebled Roman Empire.
The new study was led by researchers at the University of Cambridge and published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology.
They claim the Huns’ ‘apparently inexplicable violence’ towards the Romans may have been a strategy for coping with climatic extremes.
‘Hunnic incursions into eastern and central Europe in the 4th and 5th century have historically been considered one of the key factors in bringing the Roman Empire to an end,’ they say in the paper.
‘The violence of the Hunnic elites that was so dramatically recorded in late Roman written sources could thus have been a consequence of climatic fluctuations.’
The team’s study combines archaeological, historical, and environmental evidence, including analysis of stable isotopes in tree rings.
Chemical characteristics of the rings inside a tree can reveal what the weather conditions were like during each year of that tree’s life.
The study was based on analysis of 21 living and 126 relict oak trees that grew in what is today the Czech Republic and southeast Bavaria – adding up to 27,080 individual measurements of tree rings.
Analysis of carbon and oxygen isotopic signatures (delta C13 and delta O18) then made it possible to reconstruct past climates.
Unfortunately, written sources provide little information about what motivated the Huns to attack the Roman provinces, but the study links it with climate.
Results show that climatic fluctuations – in particular drought spells from AD 420 to 450 – would have reduced crop yields and pasture for animals beyond the floodplains of the Danube and Tisza rivers where the Huns were based.
The study argues that the most devastating Hunnic incursions of AD 447, 451 and 452 coincided with extremely dry summers in central Europe’s Carpathian Basin.
Example of a polished cross-section of an oak from the Czech Republic. Researchers studied ‘chemical fingerprints’ – carbon and oxygen isotopes – in living and dead European oak trees to reconstruct summer climate
This map shows historically recorded locations of Hunnic activity. The arrows indicate the assumed routes of the main Hunnic raids
These climate changes would likely have increased raiding activity in the region on the Romans, study author Dr Susanne Hakenbeck at Cambridge told MailOnline.
‘Drought made it difficult for the Huns to maintain large animal herds, which is what they had relied on when we first hear of them in the fourth century,’ she said.
‘It is possible – though we have no evidence for this – that one aim of the raids was to acquire food and livestock.
‘Livestock raiding is quite common among populations of animal herders.’
The Huns also made huge demands for gold and, at one point, demanded a strip of land along the Danube that was ‘five days’ journey wide’.
‘We can be fairly sure Attila demanded gold so that he could keep his war bands loyal and in the manner to which they had become accustomed,’ Dr Hakenbeck said.
‘Even Attila’s demand for an extensive strip of land along the Danube can perhaps be seen as a coping strategy, since land in the floodplain would have offered better grazing in a time of drought.’
Traditionally, the Huns have been cast as violent barbarians driven by an ‘infinite thirst for gold’.
But historical sources documenting these events were primary written by elite Romans with little direct experience of what they described, the study also claims.
Originally, Roman and Hun diplomacy was extremely complex but with ‘mutually beneficial’ arrangements resulting in Hun elites gaining access to vast amounts of gold – but climate could have changed this.
In this illustration, Attila the legendary Hunnish King invades Rome watched by heavenly figures
‘This system of collaboration broke down in the 440s, leading to regular raids of Roman lands and increasing demands for gold,’ the study says.
Ultimately, within a few decades of the violent attacks, the Huns ceased to be a major threat to Rome and lost much of their territory.
In AD 453, Attila died suddenly, having choked to death by blood from a nosebleed.
‘This led to internecine fights for supremacy among Attila’s sons, and in 454, the Huns were finally defeated in battle at the river Nedao,’ the team say.
‘By the 470s, the Huns were no longer a significant force.’
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