Assistant Professor Galina Samichkova, PhD

Galina Samichkova was born in the town of Lovech. In 2006, she earned her Master’s degree in Archaeology from St. Cyril and St. Methodius University of Veliko Tarnovo. In 2022, she defended her doctoral dissertation titled “Late Neolithic Ceramic Complexes from the Eastern Balkan Mountains to the Eastern Rhodopes” and was appointed as Assistant Professor in the Prehistory Section of National Archaeological Institute and Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NAIM - BAS). She has served as director or deputy director of numerous field excavations across Bulgaria. Since 2013, she has been the deputy head of the archaeological research at the prehistoric salt-production and urban center Provadia-Solnitsata.
Her research interests cover a wide range of topics related to Late Prehistory (Neolithic and Chalcolithic) in Southeastern Europe and Anatolia, including settlement systems, Neolithic ceramics and ornamentation, prehistoric architecture, specialized salt production, stone fortification systems, and late Chalcolithic trade networks. As project leader or team member, she has contributed to the implementation of various international and national scientific and applied research initiatives, as well as exhibitions in Bulgaria and abroad. She curated the major temporary exhibition “Lords of the Salt: Provadia-Solnitsata 5600–4350 BCE”, presented in 2024 at the National Archaeological Museum in Sofia.
She also contributed to the creation of other exhibitions dedicated to the promotion of Provadia-Solnitsata, including the poster exhibition “Provadia-Solnitsata – The Oldest Salt-Producing and Urban Center in Europe (5600–4350 BCE)” shown at the European Parliament in Brussels, later presented at the National Archaeological Museum in Sofia and the Archaeological Museum in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, the annual exhibition “Bulgarian Archaeology” at NAIM, and the temporary exhibition “Prehistoric Deities of the Western Pontic Region” at the Regional Historical Museum in Burgas.
She is actively engaged in projects related to the conservation, restoration, and public presentation of Provadia-Solnitsata, funded by the Ministry of Culture. She is also involved in a project investigating specialized prehistoric production, particularly the earliest industrial salt production during the Late Prehistory in Bulgarian lands, funded by the National Scientific Program “Cultural-Historical Heritage, National Memory and Social Development.”
In 2025, she participated in the project “The Salt of Provadia: Innovative Approaches to the History of the Oldest Specialized Salt Production,” which aims to present the movable cultural heritage of Provadia-Solnitsata in a new permanent exhibition at the Historical Museum in Provadia.
In March 2025, she co-presented the latest findings from the site at the Fifth International Congress on Salt Anthropology in Rzeszów, Poland.
She is also co-author of several scholarly articles based on the results of the excavations at the prehistoric complex.