Ukrainian archaeologist and soldier Serhiy Nemtsev says the exposed landscape of the former Kakhovka Reservoir could contain archaeological sites spanning thousands of years – but war, looting and uncertainty over the reservoir’s future are putting that heritage at risk.
The former bed of the Kakhovka Reservoir could hold some of Ukraine’s most important undiscovered archaeological treasures, according to Kherson historian and archaeologist Serhiy Nemtsev, who is currently serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
For roughly 70 years, the waters of the reservoir covered an area of about 200,000 hectares along the lower Dnipro. Beneath them lay a landscape that had been inhabited for millennia, from prehistoric communities and Bronze Age settlements to the Golden Horde and the Zaporizhian Cossacks.
Among the sites associated with the region is Mamai-Sarai, also known as Shehr al-Jedid, a major Golden Horde settlement founded in the 14th century. The wider area was also home to the Velykyi Luh, or Great Meadow, which became closely associated with the Zaporizhian Cossacks between the 16th and 18th centuries.
The meadow was so important to Cossack life that an old saying described the Sich as the mother and the Velykyi Luh as the father.
Although large-scale archaeological investigation is currently impossible because of the war, Nemtsev believes the former reservoir could eventually provide scientists with an extraordinary opportunity.
“The beauty of archaeology is that you never know what you’ll find,” he said.
Thousands of years of history
Archaeologists were able to investigate parts of the area before construction of the Kakhovka hydroelectric complex and the subsequent flooding of the reservoir in the 1950s.
Several years of archaeological surveys and emergency excavations revealed evidence spanning much of southern Ukraine’s human history, from the Late Palaeolithic period to the Cossack era.
One of the most significant discoveries was Babino III, a Middle Bronze Age settlement on the left bank of the Dnipro dating to approximately 2100–1600 BC.
The site was investigated for two years by archaeologist Sofia Berezanskaya before disappearing beneath the reservoir.
Babino III subsequently became a reference point for understanding a major Bronze Age archaeological culture. Distinctive pottery discovered in its semi-subterranean dwellings helped researchers identify related material elsewhere, including beneath burial mounds across the Ukrainian steppe.
According to Nemtsev, the culture eventually proved to have occupied an enormous territory for around two centuries, extending across most of present-day Ukraine outside the west, from Polissia to the Black Sea.
Yet archaeologists may have discovered only a fraction of what remains.
The lower Dnipro historically offered unusually rich natural resources. Even when drought degraded the surrounding steppe and made livestock farming difficult, the river valley continued to provide pasture, fish and hunting grounds.
That made it an attractive place for human settlement over thousands of years.
“People have always lived there, so there may be new sites there that were not discovered by previous expeditions,” Nemtsev said.
Golden Horde city partly beneath the reservoir
The former reservoir could also preserve evidence from considerably later periods.
Archaeologists are particularly interested in the remains of settlements, buildings, household pits, refuse deposits and burial grounds. Such features can provide information that individual artefacts cannot.
One potentially important site is the Golden Horde city on the left bank of the Dnipro towards Zaporizhzhia. Part of the settlement was submerged by the reservoir, while another section remained above water.
The areas that were flooded are particularly interesting because they occupied the lowest parts of the landscape, closest to the ancient river and floodplain.
That means they may contain archaeological material unlike that found on higher ground.
Nemtsev points to Mesolithic settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region as an example. Communities dependent on river resources established themselves immediately beside the water, leaving archaeological sites in lower terrain that have no equivalent further uphill.
As a result, investigating the former reservoir bed could reveal types of settlements that are poorly represented in previously accessible archaeological areas.
Possible evidence of Ukraine’s earliest stone construction
Several already known sites around the Kakhovka region are considered exceptionally important.
Alongside Babino are the submerged Bronze Age sites around Ushkalka. In the Zaporizhzhia region, archaeologists have also investigated the Kamyanske fortified settlement, associated with the Early Bronze Age Yamnaya culture.
Evidence found there may represent some of the earliest known stone construction on the territory of modern Ukraine, alongside traces of ancient fortifications.
Such settlements are uncommon across the southern Ukrainian steppe, making surviving examples especially valuable.
The region is equally important for the archaeology of the Zaporizhian Cossacks.
Bazavluk Island, south of Nikopol, was home to the Bazavluk Sich, associated with the period preceding Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s uprising of 1648.
Other Cossack centres, including the Kamyanska and Oleshky Siches (self-governing military centres), have survived. Nemtsev believes archaeological investigation of islands and formerly submerged territory could potentially reveal evidence of other Cossack Siches.
Whether researchers will have the opportunity to investigate them remains uncertain.
“We do make plans,” Nemtsev said. “You serve in the army and think: when it’s all over, I’ll go explore with my students. Everyone dreams of that.”
However, archaeologists do not yet know what Ukrainian authorities ultimately intend to do with the territory, including whether the destroyed hydroelectric infrastructure and reservoir will be restored.
“The strategy for exploring these territories depends on that,” he said.
War brings archaeological research to a halt
For archaeologists in Kherson, Russia’s full-scale invasion has effectively ended normal fieldwork.
Nemtsev said there had been only two archaeologists working locally before the war: himself and Denys Sikoza.
Sikoza now works with the regional heritage protection inspectorate, monitoring and documenting damage to monuments. Nemtsev joined the Ukrainian military in 2024 and serves with anti-tank forces.
“The former life has been destroyed,” he said. “None of the Kherson archaeologists are currently conducting research.”
The fighting poses another threat to archaeological sites beyond direct shelling.
Ancient settlements and burial sites are frequently located on elevated terrain – precisely the positions modern armies seek when constructing defensive lines.
“The most advantageous points are usually where archaeological sites are located,” Nemtsev explained. “These are commanding heights with the best views.”
As Ukrainian and Russian forces construct trenches, bunkers and other defensive positions, archaeological layers can be cut apart or destroyed.
“Unfortunately, during this war, fortifications have been erected on many sites along the Dnipro,” he said.
Illegal digging threatens exposed sites
The disappearance of the reservoir has created another problem: looting.
Illegal treasure hunters, commonly known in Ukraine as “black archaeologists”, have already appeared in areas associated with the former reservoir.
Nemtsev argues that archaeologists themselves have little power to stop them and says Ukraine’s enforcement system for cultural heritage offences remains inadequate, with prison sentences in such cases rare.
Online marketplaces and social-media channels displaying metal-detector finds have further encouraged the illicit trade, he said.
The damage is not simply the disappearance of valuable objects.
For archaeologists, the location and circumstances in which an artefact is discovered can be more scientifically important than the object itself.
A coin, sword or piece of jewellery recovered during a controlled excavation can be studied in relation to surrounding structures, burials, pottery, soil layers and other material. Removed from that context by an illegal digger, much of that information disappears permanently.
“A single object – a coin, a pectoral, a sword – loses 99 per cent of its scientific significance,” Nemtsev said.
Without a legitimate antiquities market, assigning a genuine monetary value to illegally excavated objects is also problematic.
Under Ukraine’s heritage system, archaeological objects recovered through legitimate scientific investigation should enter the country’s museum collections rather than private archaeological collections.
Nemtsev cited the case of former Crimean official Valeriy Horbatov, from whose Kyiv property authorities seized a vast collection of antiquities in 2022. The collection reportedly contained thousands of objects, including ancient ceramics, Scythian akinakes, weapons, coins and Byzantine material.
“This is a national treasure that, for some reason, was lying around in his home,” Nemtsev said.
Museums do not normally purchase such illegally traded archaeological material, he added. Instead, law-enforcement agencies can confiscate objects, with museum specialists assisting investigations by carrying out archaeological assessments before material is transferred into public collections.
A dream of returning to Skelka
Despite the war, Nemtsev already knows where he wants to return when archaeological fieldwork becomes possible again.
His scientific ambition is to resume excavation of Skelka, an ancient Greek settlement in the Kherson region dating from approximately the fifth to third centuries BC.
Located about seven kilometres south of Oleksandrivka on the shore of the estuary, the site consists of two roughly hectare-sized areas and was first recorded in 1895 by archaeologist Viktor Hoshkevych.
Nemtsev began working there in 2019. Progress has repeatedly been interrupted. The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted work in 2020, while Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 brought field research to an end.
The site has also suffered extensive damage from illegal excavators.
“My dream is to completely excavate the damaged part and figure out the internal layout,” Nemtsev said.
Oleksandrivka itself lay along the front line during fighting in 2022, illustrating the extraordinary circumstances now surrounding the region’s archaeological heritage.
For Nemtsev and other Ukrainian archaeologists, the former Kakhovka Reservoir therefore represents both an unprecedented scientific opportunity and an enormous conservation challenge.
Beneath a landscape hidden by water for seven decades may lie settlements, graves and artefacts capable of changing historians’ understanding of southern Ukraine.
For now, however, many of the people who would normally be studying that past are occupied with defending the country in the present.
Sources : KPUA