In 1889, the Russian archaeologist
Nikolay Veselovsky was called upon to explore the enigmatic site and started excavations the following year. As soon as he concluded that the site was a burial mound, excavations were terminated. There was very little scientific exploration of the site during the first third of the 20th century. In the 1930s, the site was investigated by a team of scholars from
Melitopol under
Valentin Danylenko (1913–82). The young archaeologist claimed to have discovered thirty caves with petroglyph inscriptions which he dated from the 20th century BC to the 17th century AD. Danylenko resumed his work on the site after
World War II and claimed to have discovered thirteen additional caves with petroglyphs. The site was designated an archaeological preserve in 1954. The move was intended to prevent the area from being flooded after construction of a
water reservoir. During the following decades, the condition of petroglyphs visibly deteriorated. In 2006, the government of Ukraine nominated the site for inscription on the
World Heritage List. On the whole, the Stone Tomb images represent traces of religious exercises of the hunters and cattle-breeders of this steppe zone of southeast Europe from the 20th century BC to the 17th century AD. Some caves are of artificial origin; their cultural strata have been fixed as the Neolithic, Bronze and Early Iron Ages as well as of Middle Ages. Engravings inside the Bull Grotto (the drawing have sometimes been considered to be a mammoth) at Kamyana Mohyla have been studied in the 21st Century using digital tools. ==Gallery==