The introductory part of the paper lists the ethnic groups of the Roman Period known from ancient sources on the territory of the Carpathian Basin (both in- and outside the Roman Empire), and describes briefly those attempts which tried to ascribe certain "typical" finds to these groups in order to identify their ethnicity.

In the second part, the authos analyses another well-known typical archaeological feature, the so-called "barrows encircled with a ditch" in order to establish whether they are suitable for use as ethnic indicators or not. The data regarding these barrows at our disposal shows that they were quite wide-spread in this area. They were not characteristic exclusively to the Sarmatians, and in some cases even a more specific western influence can be ascertained on the ground plan of these structures.