The human occupation in Makédonia goes back to the paléolithic périod. The vestiges of the very high times remain rare, but two sites were identified with certainty, in high Makédonia ( Palaiokastron ), and especially in Chalcidique, ( Pétralona ), attesting an old human presence of at least fifty thousand years.

However, it is with part of 6000 BC, that the vestiges of human settlements multiply. The old inhabitants of the Néolithic éra in Makédonia, devote themselves to the breeding, especially the caprine ones and sheep and, practise an elementary agriculture. The excavations at Néa Nikomidia, close to Béroia, the best sîte studied this périod, reveals us a material and spiritual culture sophisticated enough.

The sîte of Servia in high Makédonia, occupies for the average Néolithic éra (5000-4000 BC) a comparable position at Néa Nikomidia for the prévious périod. Breedings of the porçines and the bovines seems to take the step on that of caprine and of the sheep; the céramics crockery and figurines testify to close contact with the areas more mériodionales, in particular in Thessaly, bonds which continue and are reinforced during the recent Néolithic era. The passage of the réçent Neolithic era with old Bronze remains "obscure and contreverse": the dates suggested vary between 3000 and 2400 BC. the organization of the habitat as well as céramics once again confirm the close relation between Makédonia (at least for its power station parts and Western) and Thessaly. The diffusion of this new culture could correspond on arrival in the aréa of the first préhellenic populations of Indo-Européan origin, which one knows especially under the name of Pélasges .

The périod of average bronze is very badly known but, with the passage to réçent Bronze, the vestiges become abundant in the central part of the country, between the rivers Strymon and Axios. The turning of IIIrd in IInd millenium sees the arrival of human groups speaking an Indo-European dialect which will become later, the Greek : they are the future créators of Mycénian civilization. The périod of recent bronze raises a major problem, that of the septentrional border of the mycénian world. Though mycénian céramics reaches in significant quantity the areas coast of central Makedonia, even pénétrates in the intérior of the grounds along the river axes, all indicates that the Thermaïc gulf and its back country never belonged to an "Achaéan" kingdom. Up to one very recent time, Thessaly was regarded as the extreme limit of the mycénian world towards North. The discovery these last years, of mycénian establishments in Piéria ( Agios Démétrios) and Worn ( Aianè ) is modifying this image quickly. It is excluded only it is necessary soon to revise the traditional désign of a world mycénien crossed of Makédonia by the mountainous mass of the Olympus Mount and to push back its septentrional limits to the basin of the Haliacmon river .

With the passage at the Iron Age, about the year 1000 BC, raise with acuity the question of the relationship between ethnic groups and differ standard from material cultures. The most mystérious vestiges and more exciting are the funérary hundreds of tumulis of large nécropolis of Vergina (Greece), which oldest go up towards 900 BC. Can one already allot them to the Macédonians? According to the tradition, carrying undoubtedly a core of authenticates history, it is the catch of the brygian citadel (one calls Bryges Phrygian Europe) Edessa by a "Téménid king" called sometimes Perdiccas, and sometimes Caranos, and the settling process of its people of transhumants pastors who constitute the constitutive instrument of the Macédonian kingdom.

Always according to this tradition which historian, Théopompos, had collected from the Macédonians themselves, one counts, among the first measurements taken by the conquérors, the substitution of the Greek name Aigéai (Greece) to the brygien name Edessa and the choice of burial places of the dynasty members. As the excavations of these last years showed it, this place is not other than, the necropolis of Vergina (Greece) .