In the period of the Roman Empire (1^st – 4^th centuries) the Lowlands were populated by Sarmatian (Jazig) tribes of Iranian origin from the east, then the Huns, and finally, after the death of Attila, their former allies, the Gepids, controlled the region. A relic of this period is the shield boss from Herpály which is unique in the country. The bronze shield boss is covered with a gilded silver plate and decorated with embossed mythical animal figures. Originally it was attached to the centre of a wooden shield.

The Gepidic cemetery with its nearly 200 tombs and the village are also unique in the region which were excavated halfway between Berettyóújfalu and Szentpéterszeg, in the fields of Papp-corner and Somota-parcel. In the plundered graves, only a few weapons, items of clothing and the food dishes given to the dead as provisions for the journey were left. Dozens of Avar graves in the central part of the cemetery show that members of the Asian group that defeated the Gepids in 568 may have lived and were buried there.

The village site and cemetery discovered in the Nagy-Bócs parcel, south of the town, can be linked to a new major wave of Avar settlement from the east. 42 Avar burials from the 7^th and 8^th as well as the 8^th and 9^th centuries were discovered in that site. It may have been the family cemetery of a small community used for a relatively long period. The associated village consisted of almost half a hundred pit-houses, pits and wells, and an unusually large number of ditches.

Lone graves and a small number of cemeteries are known from the era of the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian basin (895 to the 10th century) in the region. In the three solitary graves, men were buried with their belts and horse harnesses. The man interred in Nagy-Bócs-parcel was buried with his pouch, quiver full of arrows and bow, moreover, his partially buried riding horse was put next to his body as well.  The graveyard of the common people of the 10th and 11th centuries is known from the Kovácsi-puszta in Bakonszeg, where the dead were decorated with two-parted dangles, hair rings, necklaces and simple bronze jewellery.