Mariupol: Alleged Redevelopment of Prehistoric Site

                   Did Mound, photo "Цензор.НЕТ"               

A Ukrainian online newspaper Cenzor.net informs its readers that in Mariupol, the Russian occupiers are planning to build on a protohistoric site on the extreme NW outskirts of the city (Anon. Окупанти планують знищити археологічну пам’ятку - курган Дід у Маріуполі, - Андрющенко 31 August 2022)

У захопленому Маріуполі російські окупанти задумали знищити історичну пам’ятку V тис. до н.е. курган Дід. На його місці загарбники планують почати будівництво. Як інформує Цензор.НЕТ, про це на своєму каналі в Telegram повідомив радник законного міського голови Петро Андрющенко. Історична пам'ятка розташована на вулиці Пилипа Орлика. За його словами, лише минулого року влада Маріуполя ухвалила рішення про збереження цієї пам'ятки. Андрющенко наголосив, що спротив передав копії документів, які свідчать про забудову в місці розташування кургану, що повністю його знищить.

[In captured Mariupol, the Russian occupiers planned to destroy a historical monument of the 5th millennium BC. The 'Ded Mound'. In its place, the invaders plan to start construction. As Censor.NET informs, this was reported on his Telegram channel by Petro Andryushchenko, the mayor's legal adviser. The historical monument is located on Pylyp Orlyk street. According to him, only last year the authorities of Mariupol made a decision to preserve this monument. Andryushchenko emphasized that the resistance handed over copies of documents that testify to the development of the mound at the location, which will completely destroy it].

They name the developer as Donat Vsevolodovych Yashchuk from Taganrog (Rostov Oblast). Andryushchenko wrote: "This is another crime against humanity by Russia. This is how the history of Ukraine is being destroyed. This is how the history of the world is being destroyed. Russia's neo-Bolshevik fascism is on the march".

There is a Wikipedia page for this site Курган Дід (Маріуполь) which is sited at 47° 7'21.58"N 37°31'25.85"E. The news article contains some photos, without captions. The one at the top shows the site itself from the ground level, a 6-m tall irregular mound. The one at the bottom, a vertical aerial shot of an area including mainly car parks and waste ground surrounded by a red line. I think it is a fair assessment that this shows the area of the planning permission of the proposed development. The middle photo on the page is a vertical aerial shot, showing the mound, encircled next to a car park. The bottom photo is oddly rotated in relation to it.

Satellite photo of affected area (photo "Цензор.НЕТ" )

Interestingly, this new development will be on the outskirts of a city that currently contains huge vacant plots of bombed buildings. Instead of redeveloping them to revive the destroyed city, the developer had gone for the easier option of taking a vacant site that does not involver rubble clearance. That in itself raises questions, including about the "planning policy" of the occupying authorities.

The whole subject has of course been taken up by social media and it is interesting to see people's reactions. Quite prominent are the amateur searchers of Indo-European origins. Nobody mentions the 1954 Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (of which the Russian Federation and Ukraine are both states party). The problem is it seems nobody is really looking at the site itself and the claim. 

I do not know anything about the geomorphology of the region, the mound (6m tall, lentoid in plan, 60 x 70m at the base) is prominent, higher than other hills in the area, has steep sides, but Google Earth (especially with the enhancement of the relief  turned on) suggests this mound has been much cut-about by various processes. It is not very regular. The Wikipedia article says that it is built of turves (which many Scythian mounds were) but Google Earth shows that where it is eroded, somebody seems to have been driving off-road vehicles over it at some stage, that the core material is light yellowish-orangey-brown (sand or clay?).  There is a hollow on the NW side, this possibly is an eroded ditch (?) but I note that it aligns with the valley cutting the scarp to the Kal'chyk river 800m to the east and also could be natural. We'd need to see some historical mapping. That it was only recognised and protected a year ago also raises some suspicions. Looking at what I could find, I really doubt that this is an artificial mound. It may have been modified in the past. 

I also wonder about how the dating of "fifth millennium BC" was reached. The Neolithic cultures in the 5th millennium BC would be the Dnieper–Donets culture or the Sredny Stog culture, neither of which were the creators of huge burial mounds or other communal monuments. Apparently three Bronze Age  burials were found during road construction on its edge at some time and an excavation of some kind was undertaken somewhere on it by archaeologist V. Kulbak, but the only report I can find cited is in the local newspaper, and there is no indication of what was found. The Wikipedia article is very amateurish and consists mostly of speculation, rather than reporting facts, and cites no useful literature.

Above all, I am puzzled by the discrepancy between the claims made and the third photo showing the area of development. If the boundaries shown are correct, the Kurhan is outside the area of the development shown in the article about the development destroying the mound! The second and third photos do not match up to support this claim. Is that why one of them is rotated to obscure this?

Everything I can see so far suggests this is a fake-news story, trying to exploit the current conflict and capitalise on concern for cultural property to discredit somebody.