Discovered accidentally in 1972 by a tractor driver digging a trench near the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria, the Varna Necropolis represents one of the most astonishing turning points in human prehistory. Dating back to the Late Chalcolithic period (approximately 4600 to 4200 BCE ), this prehistoric cemetery contains the absolute oldest gold artifacts ever manufactured by humankind . Before Varna, archeologists believed that complex, stratified human societies with extreme wealth disparities did n