[narrator] it's one of the greatest defeats in history.
The mighty roman empire
Brought to its knees by barbarian hordes.
The vandals, the goths,
They are described as exceeding all savagery
With an inhuman desire for violence.
[narrator] and the romans blamed one tribe and one man,
As the greatest threat to their civilization--
The huns, led by the infamous attila.
[darius] the name is legendary.
This is a person who is truly transforming the world.
[narrator] but the shocking discovery of a cemetery
Full of strangely shaped skulls challenges that story.
Fifty-one individuals had very heavily deformed skulls.
Every skull had a very exotic genetic ancestry.
[narrator] because it's not the only time
These strange looking people have appeared
During a time of chaos.
[matt] this is a phenomenon we see across the world
And throughout human history.
It's the difference between life and death.
[narrator] now, a cutting-edge investigation
Is revealing the mysteries of these unnatural skulls,
And it rewrites the fall of the roman empire.
[hannah-marie] they say history is written by the victors,
But in this case, that's not accurate.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] the relics of the past hold secrets.
[ground crumbling]
[soldier shouts]
Written in gold.
Stone.
[soldier shouts]
And blood.
We can unlock them.
These are the secrets of history's greatest treasures.
[curious music]
They're one of history's most puzzling
And disturbing mysteries.
Skeletons with bizarre cone-shaped skulls.
[matt] this is a phenomenon that we see across the world.
We see it on every continent in eurasia,
In the south pacific, in south america,
Central america, north america,
Western europe throughout history.
[narrator] across millennia and around the world,
Strangely shaped skulls seem to appear
At times of chaos and violence.
But now an unsettling discovery in the heart of europe
Is shedding new light on a phenomenon
That's perplexed experts for centuries.
[istvan] fifty-one individuals have deformed skulls,
And they look different.
In case of very heavily deformed skulls,
They don't even look natural at all.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] it's an investigation
That reveals how these skulls from the roman empire
Fit into the worldwide mystery of deformed heads.
What connects them?
What story do they tell
About the turbulent times
In which they lived and died?
And who were they?
[suspenseful music]
Near the small village of mozs, hungary,
Lies an unremarkable looking field.
It sits on the edge of what was once the roman empire,
Just a few miles from its easternmost frontier,
And a recreated roman border fort.
[istvan] this region was occupied by the romans
At the very beginning of the first century ad,
And remained under roman rule
Till the middle of the 5th century.
[dramatic music]
People living here enjoyed
Many advantages of being under roman rule,
As showed by archaeological finds
From the roman towns, villas, and forts.
[narrator] sixteen hundred years ago,
This was home to a small community,
Who buried their dead in a simple cemetery.
[eerie music]
Here their secrets lay hidden until 1961.
Archaeologists excavating this ordinary looking field,
Unearth a handful of roman-era graves.
[istvan] we are standing on the 5th century cemetery right now.
The first burial group in the 60s
Was actually found somewhere around that area.
We are standing on top of the second burial ground,
And the third burial ground
Is across and under the highway.
[narrator] the earliest finds
Suggest this was a regular roman cemetery
With bodies neatly buried in stone-lined graves.
But as excavations continue,
It soon becomes clear there was
Nothing normal about this cemetery.
[istvan] a total of 96 burials were unearthed.
Out of the 96 burials,
51 individuals showed signs of deformed skulls.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] each has a strangely elongated skull,
[eerie music]
Some as much as twice the length of a normal human head.
The skulls have puzzled experts for decades.
[eerie music]
But now, archaeologist istvan koncz
Believes the date of their burial
May provide a critical clue.
[istvan] the cemetery site is dated
To the middle of the 5th century,
And the 5th century was a very hectic time,
Especially in this part of the roman empire.
[narrator] these individuals lived and died
During one of the ancient world's
Most turbulent and pivotal times,
The fall of the roman empire.
-[people shouting] -[suspenseful music]
[darius] it's a very traumatic period for the romans.
Rome is sacked in 410.
Rome is sacked again in 455.
I mean the writing is on the wall.
There is real change here,
And it's not going to go back to the way it was before.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] at its height,
The roman empire stretched from britain
Through germany and eastern europe,
To syria and north africa.
Controlled by rigorously efficient bureaucracy
And ruthless military might,
This vast sophisticated civilization seemed invincible.
-[soldiers marching] -[dramatic music]
But it wasn't.
[darius] in the 5th century the outsiders
Are pushing into that empire,
And it starts to fragment.
-[suspenseful music] -[people shouting]
[narrator] according to roman writers,
It was these outsiders who caused the empire's collapse.
Savage barbarian hordes
Who swarmed across rome's borders,
Including those led by the infamous attila the hun.
[hannah-marie] the roman accounts from this period blame
So-called barbarians at the gates.
The idea that the roman empire
Was invaded by outside forces,
And that's why it fell.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] according to these accounts,
The barbarians overran the empire's eastern frontier,
Plunging it into chaos and violence.
Shortly afterwards,
The first strangely shaped skulls appeared
Just six miles from this frontier
In the cemetery at mozs,
And it seems this wasn't a coincidence,
Because over the following decades,
As the roman empire crumbled,
More and more people with deformed skulls
Were buried in the same small patch of land.
[gentle music]
Cranial deformation is not present
In the burials of the founding generation.
But later 70% of the individuals
Show deformed skulls.
[eerie music]
It becomes very, very common.
[narrator] the remains suggest people with
Cone-shaped skulls were taking over this outpost
On the edge of the crumbling roman empire.
-[people shouting] -[dramatic music]
Were these the infamous invaders
That roman historians blamed for the empire's collapse?
[hannah-marie] roman accounts present us with a picture
Of widespread destruction of roman provinces and cities
By groups which the romans collectively termed barbarians.
-[people shouting] -[suspenseful music]
They are supposedly uncultured, savage.
They invaded and brought down
The civilized world of the romans.
[narrator] the skulls are in the right place
At the right time.
[people clamoring]
They seem to fit with the picture painted by roman writers
Of violent savages invading from the east.
But as archaeologists investigate further,
Something doesn't add up.
The remains do not show any evidence of violence.
[narrator] these bones bear none of the injuries
Experts would expect to see
If they belonged to warriors who lived by the sword,
And of a total of 96 graves, only one contained a weapon.
[istvan] it's very surprising because these are,
Of course, very turbulent, hectic times.
[narrator] the evidence from mozs seems
To contradict written accounts of the period.
[istvan] the burials of mozs tell us a story
That's not in the written or historical sources.
It tells us a different story.
[narrator] what is that story?
How do these strangely shaped skulls fit into it?
To find the answer experts must look
Beyond these misty hungarian fields.
[heartbeat pulsating]
Because the cone-skulled beings found in mozs,
Weren't the first to walk the earth or the last.
[suspenseful music]
[dramatic music]
Locked in a laboratory in budapest, hungary,
Lie some of the roman world's strangest
And most disturbing archaeological finds.
Fifty-one elongated skulls
Unearthed in a small cemetery
On the easternmost edge of the roman empire.
[dramatic music]
They date to the period immediately after the romans
Abandoned the region in the first decades
Of the 5th century ad.
-[soldiers marching] -[dramatic music]
History records the former frontier
Descended into chaos and violence,
And at the same time the number of deformed skulls
In the cemetery increased.
Who were they,
And is there a connection between these skulls,
And the turbulent times in which they were buried?
Experts believe a clue can be found
In other similarly shaped skulls.
[matt] this is a phenomenon
That we see across the world and throughout human history.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] matt velasco has spent years
Investigating these mysterious skulls,
And not surprisingly,
He's encountered a host of colorful conspiracy theories
About these strangely shaped ancient remains.
[matt] it's not uncommon to
Hear references to extra-terrestrials
When one encounters an elongated skull.
But, in fact, this is a quintessentially human practice
That we have evidence of throughout our history.
[narrator] forensic analysis of the skeletons from mozs
And other cone shaped skulls from around the world,
Has also established they're not the result
Of a genetic abnormality.
These strangely shaped skulls
Are the product of human intervention.
Ridges on the skulls of the people from mozs
Suggest their heads been tightly wrapped
And deliberately deformed.
More disturbingly,
This had to have been started
When these individuals were babies.
[dramatic music]
[matt] head-shaping must happen
During a critical window in infancy,
When the bones of the skull have not yet fused,
And are quite malleable and can be reshaped.
An elongated head would have been achieved
Through the binding of the skull around the circumference,
Using cloth bandages, for example,
Or textile bands that were wrapped around the skull.
[narrator] the tightly wrapped bindings slowly
Squeeze and elongate the malleable infant skull.
When it finally fuses at around three years of age,
The head shape is permanently fixed.
To modern eyes, the end result may be unsettling,
But to the people who practiced cranial modification,
An elongated skull was clearly a desirable feature.
[eerie music]
This was seen as a normal, beautiful practice,
And nothing like a deformity as we would see one today.
[narrator] and remarkably, there appears to have been
No adverse effect on the child's development.
[matt] while it may have been bothersome for
A squirming child,
It probably didn't significantly, if at all,
Influence their likelihood of survival.
[narrator] skull shaping has been found
Around the globe and throughout history.
People separated by thousands of miles
And thousands of years created identical looking skulls.
The question is why?
What connects these distant societies?
What compelled people like those in mozs
To take such a drastic irreversible step?
A clue lies far from the windswept plains
Of eastern europe,
In the soaring peaks and secret canyons of south america.
[matt] in the andean highlands,
We have found large burial sites
With hundreds of individuals
That show evidence of this modification.
[narrator] in peru's colca valley,
Inside stone-built tombs,
Velasco and his colleagues have identified 213 skeletons.
Each of them has a modified skull
Similar to those in hungary.
And despite being buried 700 years apart,
Both the people of the colca valley
And mozs were buried during violent and uncertain times.
[matt] the skeletons I study date to around
1100 ad to 1450 ad.
This is a time period where we see
A lot of evidence of violence,
As people move to hilltop fortifications
To defend their agricultural resources and their families.
-[people shouting] -[gentle music]
[narrator] this descent into warfare and tribal violence
Followed the collapse of two powerful empires.
[people shouting]
[matt] we see evidence of
Social and political fragmentation
In the vacuum left by the collapse of the larger
State society that organized economy, trade,
And other aspects of social life.
[narrator] velasco believes there's a connection
Between this collapse and violence,
And the modified skulls found in the valley.
Because as the violence increased,
So did the practice of head-shaping.
[matt] in the earliest tombs,
Those dating before 1300 ad,
Around 35 to 40% of individuals had evidence
Of artificial cranial modification.
But after 1300 ad,
That number increases dramatically.
A full three-fourths of the population
Buried in these above ground tombs,
Now shows evidence of the practice.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] the people of the colca valley
Responded to violent instability,
By shaping their infants' heads.
It's evidence that suggests
An increase in head shaping could occur
During times of stress, hardship, and uncertainty.
So is that what was happening in mozs?
Because just like the people of the colca valley,
The inhabitants of mozs experienced
The collapse of a ruling empire
And the descent into chaos.
-[people shouting] -[dramatic music]
[darius] in the 5th century along the borders,
That large infrastructure that provided a feeling of safety,
That network and that government and the military,
Is not able to do the job that it once did.
[people shouting]
It would have given you a real sense of uncertainty
As to what's happening next,
And what's going to happen in the roman empire.
[narrator] but despite the chaos,
The bodies from mozs show no evidence of injury.
So who were they?
Were they locals from inside the former empire,
Or invaders from beyond the frontier?
[dramatic music]
Now groundbreaking forensic analysis
Is unlocking the answers hidden deep inside their bones.
These, along with teeth,
Contain a record of what we eat and drink
While our bodies are growing.
Using this, archaeologists can identify
What an individual ate during their childhood
And where they ate it.
So during the project,
We conducted different isotopic analysis.
This information is extracted from the teeth,
And occasionally we are also taking samples
From certain bones, like ribs
Or sometimes small parts of the long bones as well.
[narrator] as plants grow in soil,
They pick up the unique chemical fingerprint of that region.
When humans eat these plants,
These chemicals replace some of the calcium
In their teeth and bones.
For the bodies from mozs,
One chemical in particular proves critical.
Strontium.
It's an element that's composition
And distribution varies widely in nature.
This geographical variation allows archaeologists
To identify which people in the cemetery were raised locally
And which weren't.
Strontium is really like a fingerprint
Of a geographical area.
[gentle music]
[narrator] the strontium analysis reveals
That in the earliest burials dated to around 430 ad,
All the people were local
And all had normal shaped skulls.
[dramatic music]
But during the following decade this pattern changes.
Most of the people buried in this phase
Were local, as expected.
But 12 weren't.
They were outsiders,
And 10 of these had elongated skulls.
And further analysis reveals
They all shared the same diet.
[istvan] that suggests they probably
Came from the same place and moved together.
[narrator] a decade after the first burials
In the cemetery,
A group of strangers arrived in mozs.
Twelve died there.
Ten of them with elongated skulls.
They came from outside the crumbling roman empire,
And their strange appearance matches roman descriptions
Of monstrous invaders who overran the civilized world,
-[dramatic music] -[people shouting]
Marauding savages from the uncivilized east.
[hannah-marie] the vandals, the goths, the huns,
Many of these names have outlasted the roman empire
And still resonate with us today.
[suspenseful music]
[narrator] archaeologists have found dozens
Of other cone-shaped skulls
Across the empire's former eastern edge.
Suggesting people with elongated skulls
Were infiltrating the region,
-[suspenseful music] -[horse whinnying]
And not just any people.
Because now startling new scientific evidence
Links these people to the most terrifying
Of all rome's enemies,
And one of the most infamous tribes in history.
[suspenseful music]
[dramatic music]
Fifty-one bodies buried in a small cemetery
On the edge of the crumbling roman empire.
Each with a deliberately modified, elongated head.
Scientific analysis identifies 10 of them as outsiders
From beyond the roman empire's former frontier.
[people clamoring]
And this wasn't a freak occurrence.
In recent years archaeologists
Have unearthed dozens of skulls
Along what was once the eastern edge of the roman empire.
All with strikingly similar elongated skulls,
And all dating to the turbulent 5th century.
But with the empire in chaos
And so many tribes pouring across its borders,
Identifying who these people were or where they came from,
Hasn't been possible until now.
[krishna] we find these skulls primarily
In that eastern european area,
Romania, hungary those kind of areas.
And then you see it expanding a little bit out
Towards the west into germany, into France.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] advanced 21st century dna analysis
Has finally allowed geneticist krishna veeramah
To discover the identity
Of these mysterious 5th century outsiders.
We're using the dna that we can get from these individuals
To identify their genetic origins,
And trying to work out where do they come from
If they are not local.
[narrator] among these individuals
Is a small group of bodies found
In altenerding, southern germany
Buried at the same time as the bodies in mozs
With strikingly similar skulls.
So this is an example of three skeletons
That we were able to get dna from.
Furthest to the left,
We have the most extreme cranial deformation
Amongst all those that we had.
You can see a very much larger skull,
And it's kind of flat at the back.
[narrator] this extremely elongated skull
Offers a tantalizing clue
To the origin of the outsiders buried in mozs.
[krishna] the interesting thing about
This particular one on the left was
She had both the most extreme head shape,
But also the most extreme genetic difference
From the local population.
[narrator] her body was found in southern germany,
But her genetic ancestry points
To an origin thousands of miles to the east.
[krishna] her genetic background
Has a clear east asian component to it,
And so she has recent ancestry at least from east asia.
That doesn't mean she is necessarily born in east asia.
But she might have parents that have
A strong east asian ancestry
Maybe going back a few generations.
[narrator] all the other deformed skulls
Veeramah and his team have tested so far,
Show similar exotic origins.
[krishna] this was pretty remarkable.
We didn't expect it to be this clear-cut.
Every deformed skull had a very non-local,
Exotic, essentially, genetic ancestry
That suggests that they probably had moved from
Somewhere in eastern europe or even central asia.
[narrator] the similarity between the skulls studied
By veeramah and the skulls from mozs,
Strongly suggests both share the same origin in the east,
In an area that gave rise to the most notorious
Of all the barbarian tribes, the huns.
[suspenseful music]
[darius] the huns had a massive nomadic army on a horseback,
Originating all the way in mongolia, in western china.
[narrator] but despite their fame or infamy,
Very little is known about who the huns really were.
They had no written language, left no records,
And as nomads they built
No monuments, cities, or settlements.
[hannah-marie] we don't actually know very much
About the huns' way of life.
We don't know what language they spoke, really.
We don't know what religion they had,
What their daily life was like.
[narrator] almost everything historians
Know about the huns is based on roman accounts.
From these, it seems that sometime before 370 ad,
The huns began to move west.
[dramatic music]
[hannah-marie] there is some evidence
That it was the climate of the steppe regions
That forced them to move out of that territory.
The climate was very dry,
And there may have been a drought
Which led to famine.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] when the huns left their homeland,
It triggered a chain of events that would lead
From the plains of asia to the heart of rome.
[darius] the huns are really seen
As being historically grand disrupters.
As they push west,
They're going to be displacing people,
Famously, the goths.
The goths who were living there
Then moved out into vandal territory,
Which caused the vandals to migrate as well.
So it's the huns that are pushing the goths,
That are then pushing into the empire
Like a big domino effect.
-[dramatic music] -[people shouting]
[narrator] as the huns rampaged across the roman empire,
They were led by a leader whose name still resonates today.
[hannah-marie] ask anyone about the huns,
And they will undoubtedly tell you the name attila.
[narrator] attila led the huns
During the early 5th century.
At the same time as the people
With elongated skulls were buried in mozs
And across the eastern edge of the empire.
[darius] his leadership skills are legendary.
Taking this kind of dispersive, nomadic tribe,
Putting them all together into an incredible army,
Unstoppable army.
[hannah-marie] he's remembered as being
A particularly ferocious military general
Who infamously invaded the balkans
And then attacked Italy
And caused the decline and fall of the roman empire.
[narrator] there are few contemporary records
Of the huns.
But there is one tantalizing description of attila
Written within a 100 years of the empire's collapse.
[darius] we don't have many ancient sources
That tell us about the huns.
One exception to this
Is a precious document
From jordanes in the 6th century,
And in that account,
He talks specifically of attila the hun,
"as a man who was born into the world
To shake the nations as a scourge of all the lands,"
And he says that this was a man who was a lover of war.
[narrator] this account also describes attila's features,
Including his head.
[darius] he describes him as short in stature,
Broad of chest, a large head, and small eyes.
So that's our physical description that we have
Anywhere
About what attila the hun actually looked like.
[narrator] with large heads like attila himself
And possible origins in central or east asia,
It seems the outsiders buried in the cemetery
At mozs weren't simply barbarians.
They may have been huns, the most infamous,
And most feared of all the invading tribes,
And what started as a trickle,
With the arrival of 12 outsiders,
Soon became a flood.
[dramatic music]
As the influence of rome faded,
The number of deliberately shaped skulls
In the cemetery at mozs soared,
From zero in the first generation of burials
To the majority just a few decades later.
[dramatic music]
But when archaeologists turn their attention
To the cemetery's later phase,
They discover something puzzling.
Not all of the people with cone-shaped heads
Were outsiders.
As time passed,
An increasing number were locals.
[hannah-marie] we have evidence of people buried
In brick-lined graves,
Which was a roman custom.
But some of these skeletons
Show evidence of cranial modification,
Which was something that was supposedly
Brought into the region by the huns.
[narrator] the evidence suggests
There was something strange going on in mozs.
The locals, people who may have lived as roman citizens,
Copied a tradition belonging to
An entirely different civilization,
And in doing so,
They allied their children
With rome's mortal enemies.
Why?
What was it they stood to gain?
-[dramatic music] -[people shouting]
The huns, the most notorious of all the tribes
To invade the roman empire.
Today the word hun strikes fear into people's hearts.
They are remembered as being particularly ferocious warriors
Responsible for the decline and fall of the roman empire.
[narrator] ground-breaking archaeological investigation,
And the latest dna analysis,
Suggests these nomadic warriors
Proclaimed their identity in the most extreme way possible.
They deliberately and irreversibly,
Shaped their children's heads.
[matt] cranial modification would have been
A very strong marker of their shared identity.
We are literally the same people of the same origin,
And that social identity would have been
Written into their bodies.
-[crickets chirping] -[dramatic music]
[narrator] with countless different tribes
And groups moving through the crumbling empire,
All fighting for power and resources,
A distinctive head would have made it possible
To instantly distinguish friend from foe,
And for the huns in particular this was crucial.
The huns themselves were not a single group.
[krishna] they were multiple, complex societies.
They probably may have moved,
And then added other groups in,
And formed these amalgamations over time.
-[dramatic music] -[people shouting]
[narrator] under the charismatic leadership of attila,
The huns absorbed many of the tribes they encountered
On their journey from the east.
[hannah-marie] we think that their allegiance was political
Rather than racial.
So people who were part of a really
Broad diverse group like the huns,
Might have chosen to adopt cranial modification
As a means of identifying themselves.
[narrator] but now analysis of the bodies
Discovered in the 5th century cemetery in mozs,
Suggests the invaders were more diverse
Than historians ever imagined.
Grave 86 is a burial of a young, probably, girl,
Based on her grave goods.
She also had a deformed skull.
[narrator] the girl's cone-shaped skull
Suggests she could be a hun.
But her grave goods are distinctly roman.
[istvan] she was buried with an earring,
And this is a type that's distributed
All over the mediterranean.
This is definitely a late roman form of jewelry.
[gentle music]
[narrator] in keeping with her roman-style grave goods,
Strontium analysis reveals she was born and raised locally,
Along with many of the later burials with modified skulls.
[hannah-marie] finding locally born children
With evidence of cranial modifications,
Suggests that the late roman community living here
Might have taken the decision
To shape their children's skulls
In order to align them with the culture
That had moved into that territory.
[narrator] the increase in elongated skulls in mozs
Wasn't simply the result of evermore huns
Pouring across the border.
Instead, it was because an increasing number
Of locally-born people also had deformed skulls.
And not just in mozs.
[istvan] it's definitely not unique to mozs.
It's probably happened all over the roman empire.
[narrator] why would the locals,
In former roman settlements like mozs,
Subject their children to such
An extreme irreversible ordeal?
Why would they align them with the huns?
A new scientific investigation suggests
The answer may have been as simple
And fundamental as food.
Because the study reveals there was a big difference
Between the local roman diet and that of the huns.
[hannah-marie] isotopic analysis suggests
That the hunnic diet was rich
In meat and fish and fast-growing millet,
And that the roman diet was predominantly grains
And much more narrow.
[narrator] the huns' meat-rich diet
Matches an account of life at the court of attila,
Written by a roman diplomat,
Who visited the fearsome warlord's camp,
Somewhere in hungary in around 448 ad.
[hannah-marie] the roman historian, priscus,
Gives us an account
Of his visit to attila's residence
And a luxurious banquet of meat
Presented to them on silver plates.
This account suggests that the hunnic lifestyle
May not have been as unattractive
As many of our other accounts make out.
[narrator] the huns' more varied, more nutritious diet,
May help to explain why the people on the edge of empire
Chose to join forces with rome's enemies.
[hannah-marie] this late roman community,
Living on the edges of the empire, a very unstable place,
Might have been attracted to align themselves with the huns
Because of their better diet
And a potentially more secure lifestyle.
[narrator] the incentive could not have been greater,
Because the prize was nothing less
Than their children's survival.
One of the reasons we see it at such high frequencies
During these periods of social strife,
Is because marking oneself vis-a-vis the other
Is of crucial importance.
It's the difference between life and death, potentially.
[dramatic music]
A child with cranial modification,
May have had access to particular resources,
Or may have enjoyed certain social benefits,
That other individuals without a reshaped head
Would not have had access to.
And, ultimately, this can lead
To increased chances of survival.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] and a better diet wasn't the only thing
The huns had to offer the people
On the frontline of the empire.
[darius] number one, they're apparently
Very successful in warfare.
Number two, they don't seem to be going anywhere,
And number three, them being that new power base,
It would make more sense with the passing of time,
To align yourself and your own interests with those people
Versus the powers of rome that are so at this point far off.
[narrator] this, could be why the people of mozs
Saw the need to align themselves with the huns.
They chose the winners over the losers,
Food over hunger,
And they elongated their children's skulls
To cement this relationship,
And ensure their survival in this most turbulent of times.
Modifying the head of a child was a way
Of permanently inscribing on their body,
A form of privilege.
[narrator] for the huns
And the locals who lived alongside them,
An elongated head was more than a mark of identity.
It was a passport to a better, potentially longer life.
[istvan] the skulls of these children
Tell us that as parents,
We would do anything to our children
To provide them a better future.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] from this small cemetery
On the farthest edge of the roman empire,
A previously untold story is emerging
Of the huns, not as brutal savages,
But as people to be admired and emulated.
This sort of evidence does suggest then
That the simplistic view of in come the invaders
Into the empire and go in conquest and move on
Is actually much more nuanced.
[narrator] it seems that at least in mozs,
The bad guys weren't so bad after all.
They were immigrants, not invaders.
Settlers, not nomads.
[darius] we can now go back and reassess what we've learned,
Maybe unlearn it, and have a more
Sophisticated view of the huns.
[narrator] it's clear something strange
Was happening on the empire's former frontier.
Something that conflicts with the standard version of events
In which savage barbarians from the east
Destroyed roman civilization
And plunged europe into the dark ages.
How can the history of the roman empire's fall from power
Enshrined as fact for more than a millennium be wrong?
-[suspenseful music] -[people shouting]
As the roman empire collapsed,
Two worlds collided.
Roman writers paint the huns as bloodthirsty invaders,
Hell-bent on destruction.
But now, the discovery of 51 deliberately deformed skulls
In the empire's eastern reaches,
Is revealing a very different picture.
[hannah-marie] we've had this story presented to us
That with the fall of the roman empire
Came the collapse of civilization as we know it.
But actually, this is a very inaccurate
Representation of what happened.
[darius] of course, there's going to be these flashpoints,
These dramatic moments,
These losses in these battles over centuries.
But really, it's this gradual change,
And pivot into new powers
That were occupying the empire and not going away.
[narrator] the evidence from mozs suggests the huns,
And their fellow barbarians were a consequence
And not a cause of the roman empire's collapse.
There's so many factors then that lead
To the fall of the roman empire.
-[people shouting] -[suspenseful music]
The tax revenue is not there.
That power, the military, it's breaking down.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] the empire's complex economy
In which taxation, agriculture, a vast army,
And huge cities all relied on each other was its strength.
But also, its weakness.
Because when things went wrong,
This carefully constructed house of cards collapsed.
[dramatic music]
And, of course, other people are going to come
And fill in that vacuum.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] some of these people fought, some settled.
But they all shared a common purpose.
[istvan] the goal of these people is really
Sustaining their lives, their economies.
One way is to lead successful military campaigns,
Plundering or forcing payments in the form of tribute,
Or moving into the area of the empire of settling down
And living off the land.
[narrator] instead of invaders,
Many of these people were migrants,
Or even refugees in search of a better life.
[darius] people come inside,
People settle, people interact, people merge,
And so you have this kind of much more complex relationship
That's going on between these conquerors
And then the romans.
[narrator] this relationship between these two
Supposedly sworn enemies was so strong,
That by the time of the last burials in mozs,
When almost everyone buried in the cemetery
Had an elongated head,
The distinction between invaders
And locals may have ceased to exist.
[darius] it's really at a certain point
Hard to distinguish you from them,
When you've been interacting with each other for so long.
[hannah-marie] this evidence really strongly
Challenges the idea that the huns,
Or any other invading groups in this period,
Simply came in and destroyed the areas that they invaded.
[narrator] for 1500 years,
The generally accepted story
Of rome's fall from power has been wrong.
The question, is why?
And the answer lies with the original source material.
They say history is written by the victors.
But in this case, that's not accurate.
The written sources that we have of this period
Were written by the romans.
-[dramatic music] -[people shouting]
[narrator] historians have had to rely on a version
Of the empire's collapse written by the losers,
The educated roman elite,
Living 700 miles from the frontier.
[hannah-marie] we get a really strong sense from them
That they are trying to present their enemies
As more fearsome and terrible,
To make their losses seem less shameful.
[narrator] to save face,
Roman writers cast the blame on the huns.
Spinning a story of good romans versus bad barbarians,
Civilized versus uncivilized.
And with no written language
To preserve the huns' side of the story,
Roman propaganda became accepted history.
But now, scientific analysis of these extraordinary skulls
Is helping archaeologists to see through the spin,
And piece together the reality of ordinary life
In the crumbling roman empire.
[hannah-marie] archaeology can help us to tell those stories
That need to be told.
About what life was actually
Like during historical periods.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] thanks to 51 strangely shaped skulls,
Microscopic traces of strontium, carbon, and nitrogen,
Tiny variations in genetic code,
And the experience of a radically different culture,
In a different time and place,
The story of the people on the frontline
Of men, women, and children,
Who experienced the fall of the empire firsthand,
Can finally be told.
[hannah-marie] sites like mozs help us to tell the stories
About the people who actually lived
During the transformation of europe and asia
From roman rule into something new.
[narrator] but the new community in mozs was short lived.
In 453 ad attila died,
Plunging the huns' territories into civil war.
In little more than a decade,
Their empire disappeared,
And the huns vanished from contemporary accounts.
There are no burials at mozs after around 470 ad,
Just 40 years after the cemetery was founded.
And the practice of cranial modification
Petered out across europe over the following decades.
So it seems to be that kind of window in time,
In which it was culturally acceptable to a degree,
And then afterwards,
Maybe through merger of other peoples or whatnot,
Different cultural norms,
It's no longer prevalent.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] but this fleeting practice
In this short-lived community leaves a lasting legacy
That reveals for many of the people living in the empire
For many of those arriving from the east
The fall of the roman empire wasn't a disaster.
It was an opportunity,
That offered the hope of a new life in a new land
And a better future for all their children.