6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 69 



Mexico and Peru. But the invaders, though they may create a state 

 under their own banners, are seldom strong enough to give the con- 

 quered people their language, and though their name may remain, as 

 has happened later in Bulgaria, the conquerors themselves disappear, 

 either by being driven out or through rapid amalgamation. Thus 

 the Ostrogoths who gave way eventually before the Huns were in 

 all probability merely the usurping and ruling class, together with 

 their military ; and when they were driven westward they left little, 

 if anything, behind them that would permanently affect the type 

 of the indigenous populations. Moreover, they doubtless carried 

 with them, in their families, households, and the army, many ele- 

 ments and perhaps even whole groups of these populations. 



The great Hun invasion which overcame and finally drove out the 

 Ostrogoths, and which was one of the most sustained and serious of 

 the Asiatic invasions of all times, still further obliterated Scythia 

 and disorganized the whole region of the present Ukraina and Bes- 

 sarabia. Some of the Scythians possibly remained under other' 

 names, while others may have receded to Asia ; at all events they 

 vanished as a power and entity. They left thousands of kourgans or 

 burial mounds over southern Russia, but probably also, like the 

 Goths, affected in no great way its future population. 



The Hun swarm came from beyond the lower Don and Volga. 

 In blood they were of " Tartar " or Ugrian derivation, and partly — 

 perhaps largely — Mongolic. 1 Their language, like that of all the 

 native population east of the Slav Russia, belonged to the Ural- 

 Altaic. From southern Russia they extended their incursions over 

 most of western Europe, reaching finally as far as northern France, 

 where on the Catalaunian plain they met their Marne. Soon after 

 this defeat, in 455, their dread chief Attila died, the power which 

 they established in Pannonia and Central Europe rapidly crumbled, 

 their confederates, among whom were some of the Germans and 

 even Ostrogoths, broke loose, and what remained of the horde, no 

 longer able to hold its ground, retraced their steps eastward beyond 

 the Dnieper and were lost to sight. Exactly what effect the Hun 

 invasion and prolonged occupation had on the population of southern 

 Russia is difficult to gauge, but it was probably more that of destruc- 



1 It seems almost superfluous to state that racially the Germans have nothing 

 in common with the Huns. The only present European relations of the Huns 

 are the Magyars and Turks, the blood of both of whom, however, is now so 

 much mixed with that of European or Asia Minor populations that the original 

 types are submerged. 



