During the Migration Age (ca. 300-700 A.D.), "barbarian" groups like the Goths and Vandals roved around Europe, nibbling away at the declining Roman Empire and settling down as they went along. One tribe that got comfortable was the Bavarii, who hunkered down in what is now southern Germany around the sixth century A.D. And inside Bavarii cemeteries, archaeologists find interesting specimens: Women with elongated skulls.

That’s long confused researchers, who associate such skull modification in Europe at the time with places further east such as Hungary. Southeast Europe at the time was home to the feared confederacy of tribes known as the Huns, and their burial grounds contain many more long-skulled ladies than further west in Bavaria. So how did