This project analyzes both the static and evolving features of the Eastern Roman Empire’s complex symbiosis with an entire host of steppe, nomadic peoples, roughly from the appearance of the Huns north of the Black Sea to the arrival of the Bulgars south of the Danube (circa mid-4th to late-7th century C.E.). It is first a work of historical synthesis and interpretation to which end historical textual, anthropological, and archaeological methodologies are employed. This project is also however, and perhaps more critically, a work of bridging the gap between discussions in the United States and Western Europe and the intense debates of historians and archaeologists throughout Eastern Europe on the prehistory and history of their respective nation states.