[GSlob]

IIRC, Volkswanderung [German term] = [great] wandering of the peoples, supposedly started with the Huns [hsiung-nu in Chinese sources] in about early 3rd century AD, proceeded as an avalanche of displaced tribes from Eastern Central Asia westward, got to Europe in the 5th century, got deflected and dissipated, but ultimately resulted in the collapse of Western Roman empire and the establishment of a bunch of tribal kingdoms and duchies, aka Dark Ages.

[blam]

"IIRC, Volkswanderung [German term] = [great] wandering of the peoples, supposedly started with the Huns [hsiung-nu in Chinese sources] in about early 3rd century AD, proceeded as an avalanche of displaced tribes from Eastern Central Asia westward, got to Europe in the 5th century, got deflected and dissipated, but ultimately resulted in the collapse of Western Roman empire and the establishment of a bunch of tribal kingdoms and duchies, aka Dark Ages."

Ah! I know these people. They are the Xiongnu and IMO are descended from these folks:

The Curse Of The Red-Headed Mummy

They were the fiercest fighters in the Tarim Basin and the reason the Chinese built the Great Wall.

You are probably referring to the Yuezhi who fought and lost to the Xiongnu part of the Yuezhi tribe (The Greater Yuezhi) allied itself with the Xiongnu and continued to attack the Hans. The other part of the Yuezhi (The Lesser Yuezhi) migrated out of the region and may be the people to whom you refer. See here:

Yuezhi Migration And Sogdia

Now I have a little shocker for you. On page 281 of Professor Victor Mair's excellent book The Tarim Mummies he writes:

"...To give an example of where such observations can lead consider for example the two examples by A.K Narain and W.B.Hennings."

"As we have just mentioned, the people who emerge as the Tocharians in Western sources are often equated with a branch of the Yuezhi of Chinese sources who were driven from their Gansu borderlands by the Xiongnu, then further west by the Wusun, arriving at the Oxus,and going on to conquer Bactria and establish the Kushan empire, Narain argues that once one accepts the equation Tocharian = Yuezhi, then one is forced to follow both the Chinese historical sources (which for him would propel the Yuezhi back to at least the 7th century BC) and the geographical reference of their first cited historical location (Gansu) to the conclusion that they have lived there 'from times immemorial'. Narin infers that they had been there at least since the Qijia Culture c. 2000BC and probably even earlier in the Yangshao culture of the neolithic. This would render the Tocharians as virtually native to Gansu (and earlier than the putative spread of the neolithic to Xinjiang) and Narin goes so far as to argue that the Indo-Europeans themselves originally dispensed from this area westwards."

The oldest paper ever found was found in the Tarim Basin and it had the Indo-European langauage Tocharian A written on it.