Although death in ARK: Survival Evolved is not permanent you will find that you will be punished if your survivor dies for whatever reason. Dying will result in you having to take a trip back to your respawn point and re-entering the game with nothing, you will however retain your level and your level up bonuses but all the equipment you crafted and and all the resources you collected will be gone.
You will though have an opportunity to reclaim your possession back by tracking back to the place where you died and looting your corpse. You will be able to see the location of where you last died by using the navigation kit. Try to avoid this frusturating process by not getting into fights too early as this will usually lead to your survivor dying.