Architecture of Mongolia
The Xiongnu confederation ruled present-day Mongolia from the third century BCE through the first century CE, living in portable, round tents on carts and round yurts. The Xiongnu aristocracy lived in small palaces, and their villages were protected by huge walls. S. I. Rudenko also mentions capital construction built of logs. Archaeological excavations indicate that the Xiongnu had towns; their chief city was Luut Hot (Dragon City).
Xiongnu
The Xiongnu-Hun hypothesis originated with the 18th-century French historian Joseph de Guignes, who noticed that ancient Chinese scholars had referred to members of tribes associated with the Xiongnu by names similar to "Hun", albeit with varying Chinese characters. Étienne de la Vaissière has shown that, in the Sogdian script used in the so-called "Sogdian Ancient Letters", both the Xiongnu and Huns were referred to as γwn ("xwn"), indicating that the two were synonymous. Although the theory that the Xiongnu were precursors of the Huns known later in Europe is now accepted by many scholars, it has yet to become a consensus view. The identification with the Huns may be either incorrect or an oversimplification (as would appear to be the case with a proto-Mongol people, the Rouran, who have sometimes been linked to the Avars of Central Europe).