SoA Forum

History => Ancient and Medieval History => Topic started by: Imperial Dave on Jun 25, 2025, 10:33 AM

Title: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: Imperial Dave on Jun 25, 2025, 10:33 AM
https://archaeologymag.com/2025/06/european-huns-had-ancient-siberian-roots/

Have we had this one before....?
Title: Re: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: stevenneate on Jun 25, 2025, 11:11 AM
I think so.
Title: Re: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: Duncan Head on Jun 25, 2025, 11:19 AM
I didn't realise the Siberian hypothesis was still going.
Title: Re: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: Imperial Dave on Jun 25, 2025, 05:46 PM
Old info new take or new info retelling old idea...
Title: Re: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: Mark G on Jun 25, 2025, 06:50 PM
More Kremlin propaganda.  They'll be claiming this as evidence for invading Hungary next
Title: Re: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: DBS on Jun 25, 2025, 07:27 PM
Hmmmm.  Pardon my ignorance but is there any actual preserved evidence of "Old Arin", or is it simply another hypothetical reconstruction like PIE?  If there is no such preserved evidence, then one cannot confidently postulate that possible influences in Turkic and Mongolian prove that Hun=Xiongnu.  And even if Old Arin is an acceptable construct, mighty bold to assume that the only vector for such influence of Turkic and Mongolian is via the Huns, given the waves of steppe migration.

Also ignores the ethnogenesis arguments that even if the name Hun = name Xiongnu, it does not follow that the Huns, by the time they rock up on the Roman horizon, have linguistic and cultural traditions preserved unalloyed from Xiongnu roots  :)
Title: Re: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: Andreas Johansson on Jun 25, 2025, 08:57 PM
Quote from: DBS on Jun 25, 2025, 07:27 PMPardon my ignorance but is there any actual preserved evidence of "Old Arin", or is it simply another hypothetical reconstruction like PIE?   
There's the Jie sentence, which might be Yeniseian and might represent the Xiongnu language; it's supposedly in the language of the Jie, and the Jie were ex-subjects of the Xiongnu and perhaps spoke their language.

Either way, the evidence for PIE is incomparably better than for "Old Arin" (modern Arin, it should perhaps be mentioned, is extinct since the 18th century and poorly attested); calling the latter "simply another hypothetical reconstruction like PIE" wildly overstates the level of confidence we should have in it.
Title: Re: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: DBS on Jun 26, 2025, 07:45 AM
Apologies if it sounded as if I was dissing PIE; yes, it is a hypothetical reconstruction, but one for which I think the evidence from which it is inferred is very strong.  One might pause on some of the detail, such as some of the branches of the PIE tree, but I believe in the tree itself.  Furthermore, Sir William Jones is, in my book, the greatest Welshman in history...

Thank you for confirming my suspicions about "Old Arin"!
Title: Re: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: Nick Harbud on Jun 26, 2025, 02:13 PM
Wasn't there a theory that the Huns went on to form King Arthur's Kinghts of the Round Table?

 :P
Title: Re: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: Erpingham on Jun 26, 2025, 02:20 PM
Quote from: Nick Harbud on Jun 26, 2025, 02:13 PMWasn't there a theory that the Huns went on to form King Arthur's Kinghts of the Round Table?

 :P


I'm sure there is a theory that Excalibur was the Sword of Attila.
Title: Re: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: Duncan Head on Jun 26, 2025, 02:25 PM
Well, Anthony Burgess (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Any-Old-Iron-Anthony-Burgess/dp/0099658305/) said so.
Title: Re: Huns had Siberian roots
Post by: DBS on Jun 26, 2025, 04:15 PM
No, no, no. Sir Kay proves they were Zoroastrian/Avestan Iranians.