SOFIA - Archaeologists have discovered a previously unknown settlement from the Roman Era in the Mentesheto area near the town of Varna on Bulgaria’s northern Black Sea coast.

According to a report in BalkanTravellers.com, the discovery was made by archaeologists Aleksadar Michev and Teodor Rokov, who were exploring a stone structure reminiscent of a ‘dolmen’ - a typical Thracian tomb from the Early Iron Age.

The excavations show that the stone slabs on the earth’s surface were new, although four main periods of inhabitation of the place through the centuries were discovered under the ground.

The earliest testament of a human presence at the site dates to the second and third centuries.

The archaeologists’ discovery linked to this period is the stone flooring, which probably constituted part of the courtyard of a large building or Roman villa, which was destroyed around the middle of the third century by a Gothic invasion.

At about 20 centimetres over the flooring were discovered the foundations of another building, which probably dates to the end of the third and beginning of the fourth centuries, but which did not last for a long time.

The archaeologists also found evidence of an Old Bulgarian settlement that existed at the site in the ninth and tenth centuries, namely a part of a hearth and ceramics with a decoration typical of that time.

The area was also likely inhabited in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as ceramic remains from that period were also excavated. (ANI)