Than Sa Nature Reserve

About 40 kilometers northeast of the city of Thái Nguyên, a stretch of mountains holds a story that few people know, though archaeologists and ecologists watch it closely. The nature reserve is called Thần Sa and Phượng Hoàng. It lies in the Võ Nhai area of Thái Nguyên.

The name sounds strange, but the place is plain and real. It is a special-use forest, run by the Thái Nguyên provincial board for special-use and protection forests. Special-use forest is the class of forest that Vietnam keeps mainly for conservation and scientific research. Limestone mountains alternate with mountains of earth, and caves and underground streams run beneath them. This is not a place for a lively holiday. It is for anyone who wants to understand a stretch of nature that is still intact and still keeps many secrets that have not been explored.

According to the national agency for nature and biodiversity conservation, the reserve has 1,096 species of forest plants and 259 species of forest animals. It is a storehouse of life for the northeast of Thái Nguyên.

But the deepest part of the story lies underground and in the cliff walls. In the rock shelters and caves around Thần Sa, people have found traces of prehistoric people from tens of thousands of years ago.

Ngườm Rock Shelter is the most important of these places. The Thái Nguyên provincial web portal places it in the hamlet of Kim Sơn. It lies on the northern slope of the Ngườm mountain range. It is about 60 meters wide and 30 meters high. It sits about 30 meters above the Thần Sa River. It has been excavated many times, and the work is tied to the study of prehistoric people across Southeast Asia.

The Thái Nguyên newspaper has published an analysis of those excavations. It says people lived at Ngườm Rock Shelter from about 41,000 to 23,000 years ago. These dates depend on each round of digging and each analysis of samples. So this is a scientific picture that is still being filled in, not a closed number.

Beyond the age, what stands out is how these people lived. They used fire, shaped tools from stone, and lived on the very ground that is still here today. They chose a natural rock shelter, with a cliff to block the rain and wind, looking down on the Thần Sa River flowing below. It was the choice of people who knew how to live with nature.

Besides Ngườm, the Thần Sa area has other sites. Two of them are Phiêng Tung and Nà Ngùn. Two more are Thắm Choong and Hạ Sơn. The website of the Thần Sa commune says these sites lie in caves and were found in the 1970s and 1980s. They date from the middle Old Stone Age to the early New Stone Age, roughly 30,000 to 10,000 years ago.

That is the depth of these mountains. It is not flashy, and it is not a scenic spot made famous online. But it is very real, and it has many layers.

As for nature today, notice how trees push into every crack in the rock. This is a typical ecosystem of the northern karst country, where groundwater carves caves on the inside and forest makes a cover on the outside. The provincial management board describes the area as rich in caves and underground streams, and as a site for ecological research and environmental education.

One landscape that local sources mention is Mưa Rơi Waterfall, which local people also call Nậm Rứt. After heavy rain, water pours from the mountain straight down into the Thần Sa River, white between the cliff walls and the forest canopy.

Thần Sa and Phượng Hoàng does not put on a show. But standing beneath Ngườm Rock Shelter and watching the Thần Sa River flow gently below, a visitor can see why prehistoric people chose this spot as home tens of thousands of years ago. The cliff kept off the rain and wind, the forest gave shade, and the river brought water. All of it remains, waiting quietly to be found.