The article is devoted to buckle plates and belt mounts of mediterranean origin dating to the second half of the fifth and the sixth centuries A.D. (protobyzantine or western roman). Among the artifacts studied, we recognise, in certain cases, the production of western (African, Spanish, or Gaulish), and eastern (Pontic and Danubian) workshops. The general morphology of the mediter¬ ranean buckle plates, quite comparable to Merovingian examples, tends to indicat that «merovingian » and «mediterranean » dates are very close. Concerning the definition of the ethnic groups of the people who wore these ornements in the mediterranean zone, everything points to an essentially Roman or Greek population. The Barbarians in the mediterranean zone also adopted these buckle plates however