When migration leads to economic disruption: The impact of drought on Hunnic raiding activities...
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 29/03/2023

Susanne Hakenbeck & Ulf Büntgen (University of Cambridge)

The Huns are a pastoralist group that was first reported in historical sources to have appeared 
on the north-western shores of the Black Sea in the fourth century CE. From there they migrated 
to eastern Europe where, in the first half of the fifth century, they turned themselves into war 
bands that carried out a series of devastating raids in the eastern Roman empire. In this paper 
we use annually resolved climate data to attempt understand why the Huns switched from 
pastoralism to raiding, following their migration to eastern Europe. Drawing on concepts of 
“bad year economics” (Halstead and O’Shea 1989) we propose that severe drought spells in 
the 430s to 450s CE disrupted the economic organization of the incomers and local provincial 
populations, requiring both to adopt strategies to buffer against economic challenges. We argue 
that raiding and demands for tribute in gold may have been one strategy for coping with 
climatic extremes. We propose that this shift was a consequence of the Huns’ earlier migration 
into the frontier regions of the Roman empire and several years of climatic conditions that were 
unfavourable for pastoralists.