Why Nomads loved Hungary ?

[Andrelvis]

From the information I can gather, Hungary was not a natural steppe/grassland zone in the middle ages (it was heavily forested, like the surrounding regions).

Here is a reconstructed map of the forest cover of Europe throughout various time periods. I think it's based on tree pollen data, you can read about it in the scientific paper that it comes from here.

I asked similar questions last year in a thread called Nomads on the Steppe (there's some interesting discussions there, worth checking out). But I still don't really have a clear answer as to why nomads gravitated towards Hungary.

I find it more than a little strange that the borders of Hungary's geographical features in that map are exactly correspondent to modern-day Hungary's borders.

 

[Apelstav]

Best spot close to the Roman Empire, then the Eastern Roman Empire, and the Frankish Empire and then the Holy Roman Empire?

 

[JodelDiplom]

I find it more than a little strange that the borders of Hungary's geographical features in that map are exactly correspondent to modern-day Hungary's borders.

available datapoint density < ideal datapoint density

 

[Fornadan]

That sequence of maps shows a dark green patch (which I suppose indicates a "heavily forested area") continuedly from 1000 BC up to 1850 AD in what should be the northern Arabian desert (lower right corner of each map) :wacko:

My understanding of the article is that dark green does not mean "heavily forested", but "little deforestation". So to get the dark green colour, it is sufficient to

- Have the right kind of vegetation to be classified as "Open Shrubland" in their model
- Have a "Land suitable for pasture" rank of at least 0.1 according to their climatic model
- Less than 10% of the "forest" being cleared away

So basically these areas are green because they satisfy the authors' minimum criteria to be ranked as a forest, but being marginal enough land that nobody have bothered to clear it away


The imprint of modern borders are due to the population estimate time series they are using, which are divided into fixed regions based on modern borders

 

[Semper Victor]

My understanding of the article is that dark green does not mean "heavily forested", but "little deforestation". So to get the dark green colour, it is sufficient to

- Have the right kind of vegetation to be classified as "Open Shrubland" in their model
- Have a "Land suitable for pasture" rank of at least 0.1 according to their climatic model
- Less than 10% of the "forest" being cleared away

So basically these areas are green because they satisfy the authors' minimum criteria to be ranked as a forest, but being marginal enough land that nobody have bothered to clear it away


The imprint of modern borders are due to the population estimate time series they are using, which are divided into fixed regions based on modern borders

Hmmm ... that'd make sense if areas clearly unforested since 1000 BC were not showed completely white in all the maps in the sequence. After all, those areas (the Pontic steppe, for example) have also seen little or no deforestation, and so they should appear as dark green, am I right?

 

[Fornadan]

Hmmm ... that'd make sense if areas clearly unforested since 1000 BC were not showed completely white in all the maps in the sequence. After all, those areas (the Pontic steppe, for example) have also seen little or no deforestation, and so they should appear as dark green, am I right?

No, because "Areas classified by Ramankutty and Foley (1999) as Savanna, Grassland/Steppe, Tundra, Desert, Polar Desert/Rock/Ice, or Open Shrubland with an Susable < 0.1 are not considered forest and are left white."

 

[Kovax]

Rome had heavily settled parts of the Carpathian Basin, which implies extensive agriculture and deforestation, but pulled out several hundred years before the various nomadic groups in question arrived in force. The city of Pest (diagonally across the river from an extensive Roman settlement on the west bank) was already significant, but the Buda Hill castle district (mainly just south of the Roman settlement, from what remains I saw) may not have yet developed. Both the Roman presence and the remaining city and surrounding smaller towns had to have made a significant impact on the forests, particularly up to about 600AD. That's about 200-300 years of "mostly light occupancy" for it to partially grow back.

The natural protection of the Carpathian Mountains had to factor into its attraction as well, as a good place to stop running from the pressure behind. Being lightly settled, it offered minimal resistance to occupation, and going any further ran into much stronger opposition. I don't think it's so much a matter of it "drawing" the nomadic groups as it being as far West as they were able to go.

 

[Orinsul]

I have been wondering this for a while but in the early middle age, what is nowaday called "hungary" has been the center of many nomadic empire among them the Huns, Avars and of course the Magyars.

But why all those nomads choose Hungary ? What makes it so attractive to them ?

Not just those nomadic empires, it's the common theory that the celts, germans and etc, really all the indo-europeans/caucasians in europe, all came into europe through what's now Hungary.
And hungary is cited as a assumed place where the european gene for lactose tolerance is from, not only did they go through it but they hang around long enough to marry into the locals too.

So by the time of the huns and the avars it could just be tradition.

 

[Andrelvis]

Not just those nomadic empires, it's the common theory that the celts, germans and etc, really all the indo-europeans/caucasians in europe, all came into europe through what's now Hungary.

Eh?

 

[Orinsul]

Eh?

I've got a map too.

There are thousands of the things, showing all kinds of things, just about every ten years there's a new theory in every field and dozens of fields are looking at this period. But the genetic ones, who I don't like as much as Linguistic ones but have the simplier story so is easier, go with everyone stopped in hungary on the way to pick up milk tolerance and those of us without it have ancestors who didn't go through hungary, the indus valley, ethiopia and, somewhere else I don't remember, to pick up one of the most common milk tolerance genes.

This map isn't about that but 'everyone in europe is from three tribes' which I haven't read but I saw the map and thought of this thread so bam, map.

 

[joak]

Unfortunately (speaking as an American of Hungarian descent) it doesn't support the "everyone passed through Hungary" argument consider Hungary to be a synonym for "Central Europe." Then, yes, most people from the east who ended up in the west would have passed through it.

 

[Orinsul]

Unfortunately (speaking as an American of Hungarian descent) it doesn't support the "everyone passed through Hungary" argument consider Hungary to be a synonym for "Central Europe." Then, yes, most people from the east who ended up in the west would have passed through it.

In the 'using ability to digest milk to chart history' theory, it is explicitly hungary.
They go into details about which specific valley and everything which is mental, but probably makes them happy.
however I don't have a map on hand for that, but the BBC one being different is enough for the point about the many maps.

 

[cenkiss]

I think it is more of an issue of why didn't they become removed by another invader. Nomads roam everywhere, but they seem to stay in peninsulas and other defensible areas: the Koreans, the western Turks, the Magyars. They all ruled beyond the defensible area at one point, but only really the natural redoubt remains. Hungary is shielded by the Carpathian Mountains, so that must help.

Also it is a plains and steppe people like plains, hence why the Turks burned much of Anatolia when they conquered it: to make plains.

Is there any source for burning forests by Turks?