The site became the subject of wider interest again in the middle of 19th century, when a romantic writer, Feliks Bernatowicz, depicted the area in his novel ""Pojata, córka Lizdejki"" ("Pajauta, Daughter of Lizdeika", Warsaw, 1826). The hillforts were soon excavated by the Tyszkiewicz brothers and then by Władysław Syrokomla (1859). After World War II, the excavation works were restarted by Vilnius University in the 1979, and then again by the Lithuanian Institute of History between 1980–1983. The State Cultural Reserve of Kernavė was created in 2003.