Nomadic empire
The Xiongnu were a confederation of nomadic tribes from Central Asia with a ruling class of unknown origin and other subjugated tribes. They lived on the Mongolian Plateau between the 3rd century BC and the 460s AD, their territories including modern day Mongolia, southern Siberia, western Manchuria, and the modern Chinese provinces of Inner Mongolia, Gansu, and Xinjiang. The Xiongnu was the first unified empire of nomadic peoples. Relations between early Chinese dynasties and the Xiongnu were complicated and included military conflict, exchanges of tribute and trade, and marriage treaties. When Emperor Qin Shihuang drove them away from the south of the Yellow River, he built the famous Great Wall to prevent the Xiongnu from coming back.
Origin of the Huns
At the beginning of the twentiethcentury, German Sinologist Friedrich Hirth discovered passages in the Chinese annals that he believed proved the connection between the Huns and the Xiongnu. Hirth's work convinced many, and by the 1940s there was a general consensus among historians and archaeologists that the Xiongnu and the Huns were related. However, Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen showed conclusively that Hirth had misinterpreted the Chinese annals in 1945. Maenchen-Helfen also argued against the identification based on then-current archaeology and on ethnographic grounds. While he did not address the question in his most important work, "The World of the Huns" (1973), Maenchen-Helfen would go on to cast doubt on new theories that equated the Huns and the Xiongnu on the basis of their names in several articles. Maenchen-Helfen's skepticism was also taken up by prominent Eurasianist Denis Sinor.