Hun, Alan, Avar, and other Steppe Nomad Movements

[Michael Kerr]

Magister Militum Flavius Aetius wrote:

Is there any info as to whether or not the "Chunni" of Ptolemy were still existent at the time of the Hunnic Invasions in 376?

There is not much I can add to your question but these are the authors in Hyun Jim Kim's footnotes on whether elements of Turkic tribes settled and mixed with local tribes or whether they existed up to 376AD.
F. Altheim 1959 Die Hunnen in Osteuropa v1. 3-6, 12-13 in German
P.B. Golden 2000 Article “Nomads of the Western Steppes, Oyurs, Onoyurs and Khazars” in book “History of the Turkic Peoples in the Pre-Islamic Period” Pgs 282-302.
G. Vernadsky 1951”Der sarmatische Hintergrund der germanischen Volkerwandrung” in Saeculum 2 pgs 340-92 (347) in German I think.
W. Haussig 2000 Article “Herkunft, Wesen und Schicksal der Hunnen” ” in book “History of the Turkic Peoples in the Pre-Islamic Period” Pgs 256-281. German.
R. Batty 2007 Rome and the Nomads: The Pontic Danubian Realm in Antiquity p 360.
Magister Militum Flavius Aetius wrote:

As for Kim's suggestion that the Chunni were Turks, if this is the Kim I am thinking of I will warn you that his work is HEAVILY influenced by Ex-Soviet Pseudoscience and Pseudohistory.

I think you are mistaken with this author (Full name Hyun Jim Kim) who is Korean born Australian and I can assure you he is quite an accomplished scholar, etymologist, researcher and author and his work is recent. Among his mentors and people who have encouraged him to write this book are Doctor Timothy Rood of Oxford, Professor Peter Golden, Professor La Vaissiere, Professor Dan Potts & Professor David Christian, all experts in Inner and Central Asian & Turkish history and I can go on so I can only suggest that you are thinking of someone else.
Magister Militum Flavius Aetius wrote:

It seems Charaton attempted to unite more Huns under his rule. He was also the first one to move the Huns into the Carpathain and Pannonian Basins - in the time of Ultzin Hunnic power extended no further than the Dniester, or maybe the Wallachian Plain.

As the political system of the Huns liked to keep the leadership in the family and installing family members as leaders of various conquered tribes then I have to agree with you that Charaton was in some way related to Uldin. However I think that even by Uldin’s time that the Huns were occupying parts of Hungary at least which puts them much further west than the Dneister. By 378AD Goths, Alans & Huns had overrun Valeria the easternmost province of Pannonia but were probably bought off later by the Romans. But by 387AD even Maenchen-Helfen admits on page 46 of his book that Eastern Hungary was Hun land. While on Charaton and Donatas, we only have a few lines from a fragment of Olympiodorus but I find it interesting that rather than saying all Huns were good archers, he states that the Kings of the Huns were good archers which to me indicates that the Huns had a system of installing relatives or close family members of the leadership over assorted conquered tribes. I can go into more detail later on if you want.
Magister Militum Flavius Aetius wrote:

As for the Xiongnu connection, there isn't any evidence the Xiognu explicitly developed that system of political organization - it is more likely that some Altaic group developed the organization and the Xiongnu borrowed it.

Do you have any evidence to support that statement. Mounted nomads were not recorded in Chinese records until the 4th century BC but they were not a united group and recorded them under the generic name Hu. With the founding of the Ch’in dynasty, these various groups were differentiated under three small groups on China’s northern border. They were the Yueh-Chih in the west, the Xiongnu in the Ordos region and the Tung-hu in the east. But these groups were not organised. The Xiongnu only became organised and developed the system after the Ch’in emperor attacked them to drive them north of the Yellow River. The Xiongnu were considered the weakest of the three groups and it was only after this aggression that they formed a federation and eventually overwhelmed their neighbours absorbing the Tung-hu and driving the Yueh-chih west before becoming more than a nuisance for the Han Chinese. I have not read anywhere that they borrowed the system of anyone else except maybe the Chinese and their imperial system would not be suitable for a mainly pastoral enterprise, .but as they used Chinese bureaucrats maybe the system developed over time. :-)

Regards
Michael Kerr