As part of the relentlessly dynamic Balkan Peninsula, Bulgaria is and always has been the scene of change and transition. Geographically situated between Europe and Asia, it occupies a strategic cultural, economic and political crossroads, and throughout history has consequently alternated between being powerful and being overpowered.

Tens of thousands of years ago during the Paleolithic era (the Old Stone Age), the Balkans, just as in much of the rest of Europe, held sparse populations of small, close-knit clans of nomadic hunters and gatherers near fresh water sources. Several prehistoric sites have survived the millennia and contain artifacts and tantalising clues about the original inhabitants of this area.

Many of these sites are caves in the Stara Planina (Balkan Mountains), such as Magura Cave in north-western Bulgaria. Here among huge stalactites and stalagmites millions of years old, archaeologists have found evidence of ancient people dating back to at least 2700 BC and possibly several thousand years earlier. These prehistoric people left their mark in Magura cave, as evidenced by wall carvings and cave paintings made with bat guano, which portray people hunting and dancing, as well as creatures curiously resembling giraffes and kangaroos. Also found were pottery shards, remains of a fireplace and discarded flint tools and chippings.

With the climate in the Northern Hemisphere warming after the end of the last Ice Age, the Neolithic era began around 9,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent when ancient people first shifted from a nomadic hunting and gathering lifestyle to that of a settled life based around agriculture. Migrating groups from the Near East probably spread their knowledge and experience of agriculture as they travelled westward across Asia Minor (present-day Turkey) onto the European continent. By around 5000 BC, people in the Balkans had also changed to a largely settled way of life based on domesticating plants and animals. With the resulting increase in stable food sources and food surpluses in agricultural areas across the Near East, Central Asia and Europe, populations grew rapidly and consequently, a need for space created new waves of migrations.

In particular, an Indo-European group known as the Aryans moved southward in great waves from central Asia into several areas, including Eastern Europe and Asia Minor. Along with groups migrating eastward from central Europe, such as the Celts, the newcomers mixed over the centuries with the original inhabitants.