Axemen or Masemen in real world: where they are used FOR REAL?

[Ajidica]

Honestly I have a hard time keeping track of what the argument even is.

So, pecheneg is making three basic arguments (apologies if I misrepresent it):
1) The Huns were the Hsiung-Nu, a group of barbarians from northern China who were badly defeated, fled into the steppe, and emerged a few centuries later as the Huns.
2) The Huns enjoyed a technological superiority in mounted archery that allowed them to dominate their neighbors.
2a) That after adopting a sedentary lifestyle in the Danubian basin, the Huns continued to operate almost exclusively as mounted archers fighting in the nomadic style, as light units operating in loose skirmish order.
3) Something about Vegetius writing De Re Militari is to be taken as the absolute truth on late Roman military matters.

My responses are essentially:
1) The Hun - Hsiung-Nu link was thought up by a Frenchman in the 18th century because he thought the names sounded similar. However, by the mid 20th century that idea was widely disproven by EA Thompson (British historian) and Otto Maenchen-Helfen, an Austrian historian who spent several years in the Soviet Union. They rejected the idea on linguistic grounds, textual grounds, and archaeological grounds. The texts offer nothing to support the idea besides both fought for a while as mounted archers. On archaeological grounds, the Hsiung-Nu had some distinctive animal pattern metalwork which does not show up in even the burials tentatively identified as 'Hunnic'. The artifacts that do show up are generic enough to the steppe cultures that drawing any sort of link between the Huns and the Hsiung-Nu is far too tenuous to rely on. Linguistic grounds actually appears to be the shakiest, based around how 'Hsiung-Nu' could end up as 'Hun'. In the course of researching these posts I found an interesting paper proposing a Sanskrit transliteration in the transmission chain before it reached Greek, accounting for some of the otherwise unexplainable phonetic shifts. I'm not entirely sure I buy it, but I don't know enough about linguistics to have an intelligent opinion. Either way, the author noted it was a link external to the Huns. That is, the Greeks had heard of a terrifying barbarian people in the far east, so when they encountered a terrifying barbarian people close by, they decided they must be the same people and gave them the same name. (And being honest, I genuinely don't remember if any accounts say if the Huns called themselves the Huns, or indeed what they called themselves.)
2) My response is quite simply that nothing in the texts or archaeology supports that. The nomadic huns were certainly fine horse archers, but nothing available supports that they enjoyed a technological superiority over their enemies.
2a) As an early aside, I had included a quote from the British historian Guy Halsall regarding the mid 5th century Huns of Attila, after they had spent a few decades in sedentary life in the Danubian basin. Halsall, building off of the historian Rudi Linder's work on the agricultural capacity of the Danubian basin and Hungarian plains, was writing that the writings do not support the idea the Huns at this time fought almost exclusively as nomadic mounted archers, likely either fighting on foot in a manner similar to the Goths or adopting cavalry tactics similar to other nomadic people who settled down in the Danubian basin. In those better documented cases, it appears that as the societies became wealthier with greater access to arms and armor, along with less lifetime experience in the saddle out on the open steppe, their use of horse archers fighting in the nomadic style dwindled and shifted toward heavier units of horse archers more comfortable in the charge and fighting as a formed unit. I'll freely admit I could have provided better context for the Halsall quote, but pecheneg seems to have willfully persisted in misinterpreting it.
3) All I can say is that De Re Militari is not an absolute truth on anything, just like any ancient text. It is a collection of military maxims, some musings on the Roman military that have the distinct whiff of 'back in my day the men were manly men, not these weaklings and pansies', and some Roman 'wonder weapons' that would surely send the barbarians packing.
Into all this, pecheneg seems to have this idea that the European and American historians I've referred to - Guy Halsall, EA Thompson, Peter Heather, and Michael Kulikowski, are all ignorant of basic historical facts. To illustrate that, he linked to a paper by two (I presume) Russian authors.
As I laid out above in post 134, the section on the Huns has some serious problems in archaeology and textual references. How they were able to identify the graves as Hunnic is unclear, with what appears to be some circular reasoning and stuff like "composite bows were found and arrowheads in 'Hunnic' graves, bows and arrowheads were found in Hsiung-Nu graves, therefore the Huns were the Hsiung-Nu". In textual areas, they enagaged in what I can only describe as an intentional misrepresentation of Jordanes' writing in the Getica. (The Getica is a mid 6th century book written in Constantinople by Jordanes on history of the Goths.) A quick example of this. The authors are talking about Hunnic battlefield tactics and how they made great use of ambush, and they quote the Getica to support it:

An extremely important role in the Hunnic strategy was assigned to the factor of surprise in the attack. The Huns fell upon their enemies "like some kind of tornado of nations" (Iord. Get. 126).

However, the full quote from the Getica makes it clear Jordanes isn't referring to battlefield tactics of any sort.

Like a whirlwind of nations they swept across the great swamp and at once fell upon the Alpidzuri, Alcildzuri, Itimari, Tuncarsi and Boisci, who bordered on that part of Scythia.

Hope that clarifies what is going on. If there is any aspect to my posts I can clarify, I'd be happy to.

With regards to the Wielbark/Chernjakov culture discussion, these are two material cultures located in eastern Europe. The Chernjakov culture, located in south western Ukraine, is clearly associated with the Gothic kingdoms identified by the Romans. The question is how much the Chernjakov culture drew from the neighboring Wielbark culture, located in southern Poland. This is important because Jordanes in the Getica writes the Goths emigrated from Poland to Ukraine. Heather identifies the Chenjakov culture as an outgrowth of the Wielbark culture, thus demonstrating the validity of Jordanes' statements on the migration of the Goths (and migration is a well attested historical phenomena). Kulikowski on the other hand rejects the idea the Chernjakov culture is an outgrowth of the Wielbark culture, noting how many other cultures influenced the Chernjakov culture; and the only reason people ascribe a special connection between Wielbark and Chernjakov is because of Jordanes, and Jordanes' account of the early history of the Goths is too unreliable to be a guide. Kulikowski believes that if we ignore Jordanes, we would not see a special connection between Wielbark and Chernjakov. Its an interesting argument, but unfortunately I don't know enough to decide one way or the other, though I lean toward Heather over Kulikowski because of the fact migrations historically did occur and the Poland-Ukraine migration path is along a long established amber trade route to the Black Sea, providing a mechanism for migration.

 

[r16]

the New Rome has operated on concentrated cover-up or whatever on the failings of the original Rome and the so-called Third Rome is becoming increasingly unhappy at the way things develop . In a little more detailed way , the sexual lust level obsession of New Rome to create a new country in some region should not (by accident) create misgivings and doubts in the minds of strategy makers , planners and God Forbid , politicians ...

through some fanciful made up story of something in the depths of Asia engineering a stampede that finally buried the so called Western Civilization in so deep dirt that it took them like about a millennia to return to a level that they were comfy enough to think they were descended from gods and there was no contrary proof ... Gotta read that as the Middle Ages and the Colonization that followed .

can't tell whether this involves US troops pouring in or whatever for a showdown in Pençşir or a thing that if they keep pushing on China will try to crush them like china in a china shop invaded by an elephant . And can not even explain an idea of mine that the most recent Hollywood invention of Kong's island in the lndian Ocean was even challenged .

the last time this happened or maybe didn't was when some guy who was probably a Langley boy or probably wasn't spent some time after a basic idea that Alexander was so manly that the Amazon Queen rode a thousand miles and it lasted so many days (like 11 or what) that whatever happened is ancient Greek in origin . Or to be honest this wasn't put up that way . Or something . Or whatever . But basically the Turks should roll over and die . With far more effort than the guy who challenged Alexander's hmosxuality years before that . Apparently they hint to this stuff at West Point as a joke during basic discussion of Mackinder .

sides are of course free to declare that they are saying nothing of the sort . ı will not take offence .

 

[pecheneg]

Heather notes that Thompson's work largely holds up today, due in part to his familiarity with contemporary Russian ethnographers. Heather also notes that in the revision Thompson was heavily relying on the work of the Russian historian AM Khazanov's work on nomad cultures.

Khazanov is as Russian as Thompson - he has been sitting in Wisconsin since time immemorial. At the same time, like any emigrant of the 80s, his key task was to earn good reviews and sausage, and not to enlighten the tribes of the British Isles.

I was using the Frankish sword as an example of how people can be buried with items not from their material culture.

I understand correctly that your goal is to prove that Mongoloids with an East Asian haplogroup ran around the Black Sea region, but 1. These were not Huns/varieties of Huns 2. Romans not notice them near their own borders.

Look at it this way: suppose we can clearly identify a certain type of item as indisputably of Hunnic origin. That does not mean the person buried with it identified as a Hun. Perhaps he won it in a battle and treated it as a trophy. Perhaps he was given it from a Hunnic notable as a gift to an allied -but separate- people. Perhaps he was buried with it simply because the culture he was from expected him to be buried with that sort of item and the Hunnic one was the closest one to hand.

That is, do you seriously think that burials are attributed to one the most noticeable object? Tell me, what books on archaeology that you read led you to this idea? Or do you just see it like that?

The Huns on one occasion burned their saddles, and the Hsiung-Nu were noted to use saddles to create fortifications - clear cultural link!

You didn't understand the simplest text. This is not used as evidence of a cultural connection. This is an attempt to reconstruct saddles.

Similar problems with identifying the burials. How do we know they are Hunnic burials, as opposed to one of the other peoples from the region?

Have you not read the text again? The allocation of the Hun burials was the subject of almost a century of controversy. At the same time, the list of the main "Hun" signs is directly listed at the beginning of the "European part".
The same tips did not have local predecessors and analogues, for example.

When the authors talk about how bows used by the Huns are similar to that used by the Hsiung-Nu, their example of a 'Hunnic' bow is a modern reconstruction. A modern reconstruction of what? It looks significantly different than the bow found in a grave in southern Poland the authors assume to be Hunnic.

(facepalm) Because in the "Polish" picture there is not a bow, but overlays on it. What is directly written right above the picture.
At the same time, it is not so rare to find well-preserved bows.

The authors also have to admit what Marcellinus considers to be one of the defining features of the Huns - their use of bone arrowheads

He does not consider this a feature, do not misrepresent the source. Everyone else also used bone tips.

s nowhere to be found in European graves they view as Hunnic!

It's just that, unlike your fantasies, no one is brought into the Huns. Bone tips are common and have no characteristic features.

 

[pecheneg]

If the iron arrowheads found in European graves are of a central asian variety, that in no way requires a movement of peoples. The separating a movement of material culture from a social culture is one of the major elements of archaeological and historical research in the last 50 years. To use a very simple example, I live in America but my car is Japanese (and Japanese cars are quite popular in my area). Using the "new items means new peoples" line you favor, that would imply the Japanese have taken over this region of America as demonstrated by the replacement of 'American' cars in the material culture with 'Japanese' cars.

That is, from your point of view, the tips, boilers, swords, etc. got into the Black Sea region by themselves.
But at the same time, unknown Mongoloids with an East Asian haplogroup got there, who lost ALL their belongings along the way.
As a result, they took the self-propelled things of the Asian Huns
And accidentally called themselves exactly the same as the Eastern people who had these things.
Tell me, are you sure you don't have a doctorate in history from Oxford? They like that there. Probability theory is a Russian pseudoscience, imported into blessed England by Petrov and Bashirov, yes.

The tactic they are referring to is using long-range bows/ more powerful bows compared to their neighbors to gain a military advantage. However, that is not supported in the quote from Jordanes.

So you think that bows are not used in nomad skirmishes? The problem is that the authors understand the tactics of nomads.

It is worth noting that Jordanes does write the Alans were equal to the Huns in battle, and that in many cases the Huns did not surpass their enemies in war; instead relying on their fearsome reputation.

So you believe that

1. Jordan was a great expert in horse shooting?
Actually, "Getica" is a condensed retelling of the legends of the Goths in the processing of the court panegerist Cassiodorus.
Which of them was an equestrian Robin Hood or a great expert- homegrown Ostrogothic "Homers" or Cassiodorus? Everything? I would like to hear the answer to this question.

2. The Huns defeat the Alans at the expense of appearance?

I don't even know what is more beautiful.

There is nothing in Jordanes there that suggests he was referring to battlefield ambush tactics.

And where did you see the tactics of ambushes (in the steppe?) from the authors you criticize?

I can offer no comment on the Hsiung-Nu portions, but their sections on the Huns is characterized by outdated archaeological methodology (equating items with peoples), unclear identification of graves (what makes a grave 'Hunnic'?), and wanton misuse of textual sources.

However, your ideas about the methodolgy are based on your absurd ideas that the grave is attributed to one prestigious subject. And the abuse of text sources exists only in your rich imagination.

Why are you focusing on the wiki article? I have the actual book Rome's Gothic Wars.

And should I believe you about its content, and not those who wrote and checked the Wikipedia article?

Google turns up very little on him - directing me instead to various athletes and doctors - but based on the paper you cited and what I could find on the internet, it appears Simonenko is closely associated with the study of the Sarmatians

Yes, that's right. Therefore, he knows how the Sarmatian arrowheads differ from the Huns and vice versa. What's wrong?

Unless the google translate function led me astray, it appears that Simonenko was not used to support the authors link between the Huns and the Hsiung-Nu.

Does this somehow affect the content of the quote?

I'm not familiar with Russian historiography, but in English language works, the idea the Huns were the Hsiung-Nu is solidly in the 'no' category.

And if you look at Wikipedia, then again refuses the opposite.
Writing in 2009, Christopher Beckwith refers to the "general opinion of Eurasians" that the Huns and Huns are not related.[21] This consensus has been challenged by historian Etienne de la Vassiere (2005 and 2015), historian and linguist Christopher Atwood (2012), archaeologist Toshio Hayashi (2014),[22] and historian Hyun Jin Kim (2013 and 2015). However, writing in 2020, Alexander Saveliev and Chunwon Jeong refer to the proposed compound as having "only limited support in modern science."[1]
Again, offer to believe you, and not Wikipedia?
At the same time, de la Vassiere, apparently, just read the Russian "Bulletin of Archeolonia", etc., Koreans and Japanese know the topic, and you have demonstrated the level of English-speaking nomadic studies here. Very dumb.

 

[Ajidica]

After thinking on it, I'm done with this conversation. It isn't that you disagree with me, but that every historian I cite - Halsall, Thompson, Heather, or Kulikowski - you reject as being either ignorant, fantasists, or liars. Rather than putting forward counterpoints to them or materially engage with them, you just repeat insinuations they are engaged in some sort of conspiracy or are anti-Russian. In the discussion with you, I've tried to work around the language barrier but at this point it feels like you are intentionally misrepresenting what I write, quote, or summarize. For example, the paper you linked to had a line where the authors quoted Jordanes' Getica to show the Huns had a technological advantage in their bows enabling them to shoot farther. When I went to the section of the Getica the authors cited, Jordanes had simply wrote the Huns were able to wear down the Alans in many battles before victory. Interpreting 'the Huns fought many battles against the Alans before victory' to mean 'on the battlefield the Huns were able to outrange the Alans in archery thanks to technological superiority, thus gaining victory' can only be willful misinterpretation. In response, you accuse me of saying steppe nomads did not use bows - something I never said - and that Jordanes doesn't know what he is talking about (quote: "1. Jordan was a great expert in horse shooting?"); which is certainly a bit fishy as the paper you linked to was using Jordanes' allegedly intimate knowledge of Hunnic tactics to 'prove' the Huns were the Hsiung-Nu.
Add into a whole bunch of other things - such as insisting on the completeness of a brief summary on Wikipedia when I have the author's actual book on the subject literally on my bookshelf - and its clear this isn't a productive use of anyone's time.

 

[Takhisis]

@Ajidica how 'bout actual discussion of polearms?

 

[Ajidica]

@Ajidica how 'bout actual discussion of polearms?

 

[Takhisis]

What spear? A Macedonia Sarissa? The assegais of 19th-century Zulu armies? Jousting lances from the 1300s?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

What spear? A Macedonia Sarissa? The assegais of 19th-century Zulu armies? Jousting lances from the 1300s?

Be glad it's not something stupid like the length of regular hockey sticks or adult cows or two calves.

I'd hoped this would be a productive discussion in which I might learn something, but at some point an info-avalanche happened and I'm going to have to look elsewhere.

After all, I have a battle to write between two kingdoms in the early-mid 11th century.

 

[The_J]

Moderator Action: While this discussion was really interesting at the start, we think it has worn out a bit right now.
We'll give this thread a break for a week or so and then re-open it, in case someone wants to continue.

EDIT: Thread open again, feel free to continue the discussion.