Cum grano salis, or about the Anartophracti in the Słonne Mountains

At the end of the 20th century, as the researchers became more convinced about the existence of the La Tène culture settlement zone in south-eastern Poland, there were more and more attempts at identifying the ethnicity of this population. Some of the researchers allowed for connecting the said settlement with the Anartophracti, known from Claudius Ptolemy’ writings (Geography, III, 5, 8). However, in order to identify the La Tène culture population from south-eastern Poland with Ptolemy’s Anartophracti, it is necessary to prove that Ptolemy’s account concerned the peoples inhabiting the area of the upper San basin in the 3rd and possibly 2nd century B.C. It is thus necessary to prove that the geographical and chronological data are consistent. One more argument in support of the claim would be a proof that the name Anartophracti refers to a Celtic tribe. It would have to be also assumed a priori that the ethnonym of Anartophracti is not a duplicate of the name Anarti. In author’s opinion, Ptolemy’s writings do not allow to prove that the Anartophracti he mentions lived at the areas on the upper San river: they could have rather lived to the east or north-east of the Carpathians. Ptolemy’s account is not clear enough to locate the Anartophractis’ settlements. The above list of the written sources seems to indicate that the chronology of all the information concerning the Anarti ranges between the end of the 1st half of the 1st c. B.C. and the late 240s A.D. There are no premises to link with the Anarti any settlement concentrations from the north-eastern La Tène culture from phase LT C or LT D1.