Prehistory
Prehistoric settlements best known for the eneolithic necropolis (mid-5th millennium BCE radiocarbon dating), a key archaeological site in world prehistory, eponymous of old European Varna culture and internationally considered the world's oldest large find of gold artifacts, existed within modern city limits. In the wider region of the Varna lakes (before the 1900s, freshwater) and the adjacent karst springs and caves, over 30 prehistoric settlements have been unearthed with the earliest artifacts dating back to the Middle Paleolithicor 100,000 years ago.
Antiquity and Bulgarian conquest
The region of ancient Thrace was populated by Thracians by 1000 BCE. Miletians founded the apoikia (trading post) of Odessos towards the end of the 7th century BC (the earliest Greek archaeological material is dated 600�575 BCE), or, according to Pseudo-Scymnus, in the time of Astyages (here, usually 572�570 BCE is suggested), within an earlier Thracian settlement. The name Odessos was pre-Greek, arguably of Carian origin. A member of the Pontic Pentapolis, Odessos was a mixed community�contact zone between the Ionians and the Thracians (Getae, Krobyzoi, Terizi) of the hinterland. Excavations at nearby Thracian sites have shown uninterrupted occupation from the 7th to the 4th century and close commercial relations with the colony. The Greek alphabet has been applied to inscriptions in Thracian since at least the 5th century BCE; the city worshipped a Thracian great god whose cult survived well into the Roman period.
Odessos was included in the assessment of the Delian league of 425 BCE. In 339 BCE, it was unsuccessfully besieged by Philip II(priests of the Getae persuaded him to conclude a treaty) but surrendered to Alexander the Great in 335 BCE, and was later ruled by his diadochus Lysimachus, against whom it rebelled in 313 BC as part of a coalition with other Pontic cities and the Getae. The Roman city,Odessus, first included into
