Chertovy Vorota Cave

Chertovy Vorota Cave (Devil's Gate) is a karst cave and archaeological site in the Dalnegorsk municipal district of Primorsky Krai, 12 km from the town of Dalnegorsk. It lies in the upper reaches of the Krivaya River, a tributary of the Rudnaya River, at the foot of Mount Sakharnaya, about 30 to 35 meters above the valley floor. The cave's passages run 132 meters, the cavities total around 2500 cubic meters in volume, and the entrance is about 15 meters across.

Layout of the cave

From the entrance the cave opens into a hall 45 meters long and 10 meters wide, its ceiling dropping from 16 meters near the entrance to 3 meters at the far end. An ascending gallery with a collapsed roof leads from the hall, along with a narrow corridor opening into a smaller additional chamber.

Archaeological finds

Chertovy Vorota Cave is one of the best-known Neolithic sites in the Russian Far East: the settlement found here dates to the mid-5th millennium BC, with finds estimated at 7638 to 7742 years old. Archaeologists V. A. Tatarnikov and Zh. V. Andreeva surveyed the site in 1972 to 1973; Tatarnikov drew up the cave's first plan.

Excavations uncovered the remains of a dwelling that burned down in a fire, along with a workshop for making stone tools. Finds include scrapers, arrowheads and spearheads, knives, drills, ceramic items, animal bones and mollusk shells. Bones of a wolf-dog found in the cave's layers point to an early stage of animal domestication in the region, alongside what are considered the oldest textile items found in the Far East. Genetic analysis of human remains from the cave showed similarity to the genome of the modern Ulchi people, an indigenous people of the Amur region. Under the debris of the collapsed dwelling, archaeologists found five human skeletons bearing signs of violent death, pointing to a tragedy that took place here in ancient times. Finds from the cave are now held at the Dalnegorsk Museum and Exhibition Center.

Legend

Victor Tatarnikov, who studied the cave, wrote a book titled "A Historical Tale of the Stone Age People from the Chertovy Vorota Cave, as Told to the Author by Agat," in which real archaeological finds are interwoven with a fictional fairy-tale plot about prehistoric people, supposedly narrated to the author by the cave's spirit, Agat.

Getting there

Chertovy Vorota Cave can be reached by car from Dalnegorsk or the settlement of Kavalerovo; it is important not to miss the right turn off the highway. From there the route continues on foot along a road and a trail beside a stream, taking about one hour and twenty minutes.