Until the 6th century B.C. the Macedonians were a group of pastoral peoples. They were headed by their king, from the Argead family. According to local tradition, the members of this family were descended from Argeus son of Macedon, whose brothers were Pierus, Amathus and Brusis. The Argeads migrated to Emathia from Orestic Argos in the 6th century. But they themselves claimed that they were descended from Temenus the Heraclid, king of Argos. At this same time, Upper Macedonia (West Macedonia, in modern parlance) was inhabited by tribes akin to the Molossi of Epirus: the Pelagones, Lyncestae, Orestae, and Elimiotae. in the late 6th century, the Macedonians, who had submitted to Persia, imposed their control on the peoples of Upper Macedonia, but these preserved their royal houses and their internal autonomy.

Such information as we have about the early period of Macedonian history is scattered, and reconstruction of Macedonia's constitutional organization relies on later testimonies. The king, initially an elective leader of the shepherds' clan, gathered to himself political, military and religious power once the Macedonians were permanently installed. This power was, however, controlled by the gathering of the army ("the koinon of the Macedonians"). The meeting had jurisdiction to elect the king and to get rid of him; and to sit in judgment on possible cases of treason. From Upper Macedonia the meeting of the "Peligani", the leaders of the smaller ethnos-type states, is mentioned. Gradually, during the 6th century, cities were created in Lower Macedonia, but they did not enjoy the autonomy of the city states of southern Hellas. Royal power was particularly strengthened during the reign of Alexander I Philhellene. By taking advantage of the fact that Macedonia was the passage to southern Hellas, he managed to extend his kigndom to the region between the rivers Axius and Strymon. He now obtained control of the region's gold mines, and minted the first coinage, copying the coin type of the local Thracian Bisaltae. This period marks the gradual strengthening of contacts with southern Hellas. But despite Alexander's participation in the Olympic Games, Macedonia, because of her archaic social organization, remained until the mid-4th century on the fringes of the Hellenic world.