Finding every rare relic across hostile cave networks is mandatory if you want to challenge end-game bosses. Ark survival artifacts serve as structural tributes required to activate Obelisks and summon apex threats like the Broodmother, Megapithecus, and Dragon. Without these items sitting in your inventory or dedicated storage boxes, progression grinds to an absolute halt.
Getting your hands on these items requires braving lethal dungeons filled with environmental hazards, extreme temperatures, and hyper-aggressive creatures. You can't just walk in with a basic spear and expect to survive. Success demands specialized tames, proper armor tiers, and precise geographic coordinates to find hidden tunnel entrances.
Understanding Artifact Purpose and Boss Progression
Artifacts are physical, glowing trophies hidden deep inside procedural or fixed cave systems. Each relic corresponds directly to specific boss tributes across maps like The Island, Scorched Earth, and beyond. If you're playing on Steam, managing your inventory weight and preservation items before entering these zones is critical because dying inside a cave often means losing high-end gear permanently.
Boss terminals demand specific sets of artifacts depending on the difficulty tier you select. Gamma runs might require easier relics, but Alpha variants push you to collect multiple high-tier trophies alongside creature parts like Megalodon Teeth or Tyrannosaurus Arms. Setting up a dedicated artifact display room near your base helps you keep track of what you've secured and what you still need to farm.
Primary Artifact Locations on The Island
Navigating The Island's subterranean networks requires exact coordinates and specialized gear. Caves are divided into land-based chambers and punishing underwater abysses.
- Artifact of the Hunter: Located in the Lower South Cave at 80.2° LAT and 53.5° LON. This is widely considered the best starter cave, featuring manageable creatures like snakes and bats. Bring bug repellent to bypass a lot of the local wildlife.
- Artifact of the Pack: Found in the Upper South Cave at 68.2° LAT and 56.2° LON. Navigating this tunnel system requires careful jumping across chasms and managing cold insulation.
- Artifact of the Clever: Situated in the Central Cave at 41.6° LAT and 43.9° LON near the volcano. You'll encounter swarms of araneos and onyx, making a pump-action shotgun or a well-bred direwolf essential.
- Artifact of the Massive: Housed in the Lava Cave at 70.6° LAT and 86.1° LON in the southeast. Extreme heat requires high hypothermal insulation or multiple canteens, plus grappling hooks to navigate lava pits.
High-Tier and Underwater Cave Challenges
As you progress toward end-game progression, caves scale drastically in difficulty, introducing environmental kill-zones and elite creatures.
- Artifact of the Immune: Located inside the Swamp Cave at 64.8° LAT and 35.1° LON. Gas masks or scuba tanks are mandatory here because toxic spores drain health rapidly. Arthropods inside can instantly shred your armor durability.
- Artifact of the Strong: Found within the Snow Cave at 26.0° LAT and 29.0° LON. Freezing temperatures demand high-tier fur gear, and you'll fight powerful enemies like Yutyrannus and Purlovia that can knock you off your mount.
- The Caverns of Lost Hope: Located underwater on the east coast at 45.4° LAT and 95.0° LON. Securing the Artifact of the Cunning means swimming through deep trenches swarming with alpha mosasurs and plesiosaurs.
- The Caverns of Lost Faith: Found on the west coast at 54.4° LAT and 3.9° LON. This underwater trench holds the Artifact of the Brute, requiring a high-level Basilosaurus to neutralize jellyfish stings.
Essential Gear and Preparation Strategies
Walking into a cave unprepared results in quick item loss and frustrating corpse runs. Build a secure staging outpost just outside the cave entrance with extra beds, backup armor sets, and medical brews.
Never enter a cave on foot if you can avoid it. Smaller mounts like the Baryonyx fit into most land caves, offering strong combat capabilities and a stunning tail attack against swarms of bats or insects. For underwater explorations, a mated pair of high-level Basilosauruses provides natural immunity to electric eels and deep-sea pressure. Always pack medical brews, stimulant pills to counter venom, and spare repair materials for your weapons.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Players often jeopardize hours of progress by falling into predictable traps. One major error is failing to check cave respawn timers or building structures too close to spawn points, which can block artifact collection entirely.
Another frequent mistake involves carrying too much heavy loot. Caves contain valuable drops, but overloading your character or mount leaves you vulnerable to fall damage or sudden ambushes. Leave unnecessary resources in your base chest, and keep your weight capacity strictly reserved for medical supplies, ammunition, and the artifact itself. Finally, don't rely on a single sleeping bag placed right at the entrance; place multiple beds inside a small 1x1 stone hut outside to ensure you have a safe spawn point if things go wrong.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can artifacts despawn if left on the ground?
Yes. If you drop an artifact outside of a dedicated container or tribute terminal, it will disappear after a short world timer, so transfer it directly to secure storage immediately.
Do artifacts respawn on official servers?
Artifacts respawn automatically after a set period, usually ranging from 15 to 30 minutes, though official server lag or player building blocking can occasionally delay this cycle.
Can you transfer artifacts across different servers?
Depending on server cluster rules and administrative settings, you can often transfer items through obelisks, but many official and unofficial rulesets restrict tribute inventory transfers to prevent exploits.
What is the safest mount for tight cave corridors?
The Sabertooth and Direwolf excel in narrow tunnels because of their maneuverability, high DPS, and ability to harvest chitin and pelt efficiently from cave inhabitants.
