Three settlement patterns and solutions come to the fore; the first being the establishment of an agricultural base in a region that allowed them to support larger populations; the second being that the Germanic peoples periodically cleared forests to extend the range of their pasturage; and the third (and the most frequent occurrence) being that they often emigrated to other areas as they exhausted the immediately available resources.

The relation between the Huns and the Germanic tribes was not the same for all tribes. Some of the tribal peoples the Huns found after crossing the Volga -Alans, Ostrogoths, Gepids- joined forces with them out of both fear and greed.

Franks. a group of west Germanic tribes that formed a tribal alliance first mentioned in the mid-third century; the tribes included the Chamavi, Bructeri, Usipetes, Tencteri, and Sugambri. Historians divide the Franks into two groups. The nucleus of the first group was made up of the Salian Franks, later the West Franks, whose name derived from ...