Arkadiy Dobrovolskyi

Arkadiy Viktorovich Dobrovolskyi (; February 18, 1887 – June 27, 1956) was a Ukrainian archaeologist and researcher who led the NASU Institute of Archaeology for several years and excavated various sites in southern Ukraine.

Biography Dobrovolskyi was born on February 18, 1887 in the village of Poltavtsi, Shirokov Volost, Kherson Oblast to the family of local wealthy nobleman Viktor Vasylyovich Dobrovolskyi and his wife Hanna Platonivna. Dobrovolskyi spent his childhood in Odesa where he received his secondary education at the Richelieu Gymnasium. In 1906, he attended the physics and mathematics department of the Imperial Novorossiysk University, now Odesa University, later transferring to the law department, where he graduated in 1912.

After graduating from university in 1912 and the simultaneous election as a corresponding member of the OTIS, Dobrovolskyi began his own archaeological practice. His first excavation was of a burial mound in Slobodka-Romanovka, a suburb of Odesa. The Slobodka-Romanovka excavations were carried out between 1912 and 1913, and were also Dobrovolskyi's first scientific publication.

In 1928, Dobrovolskyi was involved in excavating the Dniprohes reservoir, which was to be flooded by the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station. Many of his excavations were significant to the region of Nadporizhia near Dnipro. Between 1932 and 1938, Dobrovolskyi worked often in the Dmytro Yavornytsky National Historical Museum of Dnipro, returning to Odesa in 1939.

In 1951, Dobrovolskyi conducted archaeological excavations in the area where the Kakhovka Dam was to be built. His research near the Kahkovskaya Dam led him to be promoted to head of the NASU Institute of Archaeology's department of primitive archaeology. Dobrovolskyi effectively headed all archaeological excavations on early human history across the entire Ukrainian SSR.