The following documents contain a mixture of different and sometimes opposing views on the origin and early history of Hungarians. Some of these ideas are still greatly debated and more controversial than others. In fact, there is no general agreement among scientists as to when and where Hungarians originated and what their early history was. This controversy is very well reflected in the historical reconstructions, especially in the contrasting papers by András Róna-Tas, Gyula László and Fred Hámori. Clearly, the beginnings of Hungarians fades into the distant and unknown past, into which no one has been able to take even a brief glimpse.Historically, there has been two major competing views in the scientific community on the origin of Hungarians. The widely publicized Finno-Ugric origin (see the history of migration) is internationally more accepted, although it is based, in large part, on linguistic data. There is, however, an increasing body of evidence that Hungarians are related to Turkic (Central Asian) people. Both theories are supported by either some anthropological, or cultural, or linguistic evidence, but as of today, neither of them can be fully rejected or accepted. There are still many, open and unanswered questions concerning these theories, so the documents below present possible hypotheses rather than established facts. Yet perhaps it is the mystery surrounding the distant past of Hungarians that makes our early history so fascinating.
linguistic, cultural and anthropological evidence