An 1875 illustration by Henric Trenk of perhaps the most famous find regarding the Goths, the Ring of Pietroassa. The ring was found in what is now Romania in 1875. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Archaeology in Bulgaria reports that archaeologists in Bulgaria have unearthed numerous finds suggesting that a large settlement of Visigoths, an East Germanic people, once existed in what is now northeast Bulgaria.

The finds center around a Roman fortress—modernly referred to as Kovachevsko Kale—constructed in the 4th century CE, and consists primarily of ceramics.

According to the team at the site, the ceramics types—polished gray pottery and gray-black pottery—reveal a sudden appearance of a large amount of Eastern Germanic peoples during the 4th century, a notable period in Gothic history (and the Migration Period in general).

Beginning in the 4th century and spurred by the westward movement of the Huns, open conflict occurred between the Roman Empire and the Goths, events that are generally considered crucial to the collapse of the Roman Empire.