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Abstract; Based on archaeological materials, this paper lists a large number of facts and cases to show that the concepts and materials of cultural anthropology are obvious in both material culture and spiritual culture when they are used in prehistoric times, and analyzes the reasons. The most fundamental reason is that the concepts and materials of cultural anthropology and the understanding of primitive people and primitive culture all come from or are based on the living and living conditions of primitive people and aborigines still left over from modern and contemporary earth. They are different from the "mainstream" of human civilization such as ancient times, Egypt, West Asia, India, Indian civilization and Minoan civilization, and cannot be equated artificially. The article also focuses on the analysis of China's "totem", and holds that it is difficult to prove totem in China ancient culture or prehistoric culture, which is doubtful. At the same time, it is pointed out that there is no "culture" or its inherent important deficiency in cultural anthropology, so it is impossible to judge and speculate on the "mainstream" of ancient human civilization and culture.
Keywords: cultural anthropology; ; Prehistoric research; ; Problems and causes; ; Scientific culture
On the one hand, because the records are limited or incomplete, and even more because they are equivalent to prehistoric times, the existing ancient documents are generally very close, while myths and legends are not recorded in historical books, and most of them are regarded as imaginary, fantasy and fictional scenes of the ancients (this can be seen from the understanding of the "ancient history debate" school in China and the definition of "myth" in various related reference books and studies [1]). On the other hand, most of today's scholars believe the conclusions about primitive culture drawn by western anthropologists and ethnologists when they investigate the primitive people and aborigines still existing on the modern and contemporary earth, and think that the culture and degree of China in ancient and prehistoric times are at the same development stage and conditions as those primitive people and aborigines still existing on the earth today. Therefore, scholars often compare and observe ancient and prehistoric cultures in China with some conclusions, understandings and methods of cultural anthropology. Originally, this is a normal and beneficial phenomenon and method. However, in contemporary China and academic circles, there seems to be a phenomenon and tendency of abusing cultural anthropology and ethnology materials. Cultural anthropology and some concepts and understandings have been promoted to an inappropriate position, and people may even use it to decorate the facade or get rid of the discourse dilemma and study the dilemma. In the research fields of China's ancient history, culture, religion, literature, system and myth, especially in ancient and prehistoric archaeological research and related writings, we can often see the authors or help propagandists introduce terms such as "applying cultural anthropology" and "studying from the perspective of cultural anthropology", and these studies and writings are indeed full of totems, gods, witchcraft, worship, sacrifice, matriarchal, paternal, public and private. There are not only systematic writings and constructions, but also sporadic or simple comparisons and references. There are even many who directly apply totem, witchcraft, sacrifice and all kinds of "worship" to prehistoric relics and cultural phenomena. Most of the conclusions and understandings can't stand the test, doubt or difficult to judge. As the congenital deficiency and limitation of cultural anthropology, which studies the origin and evolution of human culture, it seems that few people talk about the problems existing in the application of cultural anthropology to China's ancient history and culture, especially in prehistoric archaeology and prehistoric research, so this paper mainly talks about the problems existing in the application of cultural anthropology to China's prehistoric research. Give examples of phenomena and facts, and then talk about why there are "problems". Please criticize and correct the shortcomings by experts and scholars.
; ; ; I. Enumeration and analysis of "problems"
Regardless of prehistoric times or historical periods, we can divide the whole human culture into three parts, namely, material culture, spiritual culture (including science and technology) and social system. As for the social system, it involves a series of concepts, terms and theories such as family, clan (phratry), tribe, matriarchal development, public development and private development. These things are not suitable for the archaeological data of Neolithic age in China. The author has done some archaeological research on the Yanhuang War (10- 1 1). Let's talk about material culture and spiritual culture (of course, material, spirit and system are interrelated).
1, about material culture
Morgan divided human history into three stages: the age of ignorance, the age of barbarism and the age of civilization, among which the age of barbarism was divided into three stages: low, middle and high. Morgan has a famous conclusion about the society in the low barbaric age (about the early Neolithic age). He believes that this period or society refers to "tribes who are popular in making pottery but don't know how to raise animals" in the old hemisphere, while in the western hemisphere it refers to the stage from knowing how to make pottery to "planting crops such as corn by irrigation and building houses with adobe and stones". Morgan's judgment mainly comes from the investigation of American Indians, so his understanding of the Western Hemisphere is generally good, but his understanding of the Eastern Hemisphere is not consistent with the results of later archaeological excavations: the earliest origin of human civilization is the Kebala culture in Mesolithic West Asia (about16,000 years ago-10,000 years ago), and its "residents lived a life of hunting and gathering. Judging from the concentration of animal bones, animal husbandry may have sprouted, such as the Madagag site near Petra, where goat bones account for 82% of all animal bones; Antelope bones account for 74% of the Farah site near Mount Callmar. It is generally believed that this phenomenon indicates that overgrazing may have occurred, and these goats or antelopes may be the earliest domestic animals. "At this point, the residents of Kaibala culture have not invented pottery, and even the Natufu culture developed from Kaibala culture is still a kind of Neolithic culture without pottery [4]. In the pre-Neolithic period in West Asia, mature livestock were raised in many places: for example, in Jericho, south of the Levant, wheat, peas and oats were planted, and a "real domestic goat" appeared. Wheat, barley, peas and lentils, including sheep, goats and pigs, were planted in Chayoni, Turkey. Anatolia also produced the original agriculture and animal husbandry, including pigs, sheep and goats. In China, another agricultural origin center in the Eastern Hemisphere, animal husbandry appeared not later than pottery, but generally at the same time: pottery began to appear about 1 10,000 years ago, and some people may have raised chickens, pigs and dogs, such as chicken bones, pig bones and dog bones unearthed from Nanzhuangtou site in Xu Shui, Hebei Province, which are considered as domestic animals; Especially in the same period, many pig bones were unearthed on the upper and lower floors of Zhuwapi Cave Site in Guilin, Guangxi. " After identification, there are 67 individuals, and the age value of pigs is relatively concentrated, with the largest number of adult pigs, aged between 65, 438 and 0-2 years old. Rarely grow thick canine teeth, incisors are generally thin and weak, and there is no deeply worn third molar. These all reflect the results of artificial feeding and slaughter, and the feeding time is long. By about 8,000 years ago, when the pottery industry was initially developed, the raising of domestic animals such as chickens, pigs and dogs was also very common and mature, and the raising of cattle and sheep may have begun, such as the related discoveries in Peiligang, Cishan, Jia Hu, Dadiwan and Qiao Hu [6].
Pottery is one of the most common daily necessities in human life in the Neolithic Age, and it is also regarded by archaeologists as one of the most important features and symbols of the Neolithic Age. On the origin of pottery, Engels has a famous assertion that is often quoted by scholars: "It can be proved that in many places, perhaps in all places, the manufacture of pottery is caused by coating clay on woven or wooden containers to make them fire-resistant. In doing so, people soon found that molded clay can be used for this purpose without an internal container "[7]. Engels' argument was accepted by Morgan's Ancient Society, which was based on the anthropologist Taylor's study of ancient human history. Taylor borrowed other people's views: Gegai "first reminded everyone of the process of the invention of pottery in the last century. He said that people first painted clay on this container that was easy to catch fire to avoid being burned, so that later they found that only clay itself could achieve this goal. This is the world. This is indeed the case in ethnological materials. For example, Mr. Lin cited that both the aborigines in South America and the Vasu people in Arizona painted mud on textiles, and then used them to hold things and barbecue them on the fire to show that some pottery may be made in this way [9], but there is no conclusive and sufficient evidence in archaeology to show that pottery originated from painting mud on textiles and then barbecuing them.
; ; ; Scholars generally believe that the invention of pottery is accompanied by the occurrence of settlement and planting agriculture, and it is produced to meet the needs of storing grain, cooking and holding water and soup [10]. This understanding actually means that the origin and invention of pottery are due to some internal and dynamic factors in human evolution and lifestyle, rather than mud on weaving or accidental fire. This understanding has been generally confirmed by archaeological excavations and can be considered as coming from modern archaeological excavations and research. It is known that in different ancient civilizations, early pottery appeared sooner or later, not all accompanied by planting agriculture, but there is no evidence that pottery originated from weaving mud barbecue. Take West Asia, where agriculture originated earliest in human history, as an example: West Asia experienced about 65,438+0,000 years of pre-pottery Neolithic Age (about 8,000 years ago-7,000 years ago) before the origin of pottery. During this period, there were relatively mature farming agriculture and animal husbandry. Even in the earlier Mesolithic Age, such as the Natufu culture, there were signs of agricultural origin, and animal husbandry began without pottery. The cultural accumulation of Peking University site is the remains of the pre-Tao Tao era and the Middle Stone Age, and its stone products include mortar, pestle, bowl, basin and so on. Fragments of marble bowls remain in the pre-pottery of Hajiral site, and stone containers of different types and sizes remain in the pre-Tao Tao period of Kirokitia site. The earliest pottery in West Asia was found at the Muraibat site in the north of the Levant. "These pottery are too rough to burn through, and the pores still exist, so they can't hold water and can't replace empty utensils made of wood and stone" [13]; Early pottery unearthed at Xiuyu site in Catal, Turkey "has a bright milky yellow or light gray tire, a common deep bowl with a flat bottom and a shallow basin with a low temperature". Archaeologists believe that "the small number of pottery at that time may be due to the use of wooden and stone containers and baskets by residents at that time" [14]. Because the emergence of artificial fire is much earlier than the invention of planting agriculture, the knowledge and knowledge that fire can make soil hard or even impermeable should be formed before the emergence of planting agriculture, and the production of woven fabrics should be earlier than planting agriculture (because of the need of collection). Therefore, if pottery was invented by coating mud on fabrics and then firing, it should have been widely used in the pre-Neolithic pottery in West Asia, instead of making more difficult and time-consuming stone containers, and the earliest appearance of pottery may be traced back to West Asia. Obviously, in West Asia, the appearance of pottery imitates and replaces wood and stone containers, especially stone tools (the production and use of wood and stone containers in the pre-pottery period should be the continuation of the so-called "wood age" and the tradition of the Stone Age, which led to the appearance of pottery in West Asia lagging behind the occurrence of planting agriculture) rather than braids, and of course, it is not excluded that pottery imitates braids in modeling. In China, another agricultural origin center in Asia, there is evidence that the appearance of pottery industry is closely related to primitive agriculture [15]. The early methods of making pottery were mainly kneading dough and pasting (the clay tray method should be later), but it was found that the earliest pottery was made by kneading dough, but there was no evidence that the clay was fired in a basket [16]. If pottery originated from barbecue with mud on woven cloth (or wooden container), there will be evidence on early pottery and pottery pieces (or there are traces of woven cloth on pottery and pottery pieces, or there are traces of woven cloth in the middle layer of pottery tires), but so far there is no such evidence or related reports. ;
; ; ; The origin of agriculture in Japan is very late, but it is the earliest place where pottery appeared in the world: pottery about 65438+20000 years ago was unearthed at the site of Upper Heiyanyin in Ehime Prefecture, Japan, and early pottery was later found in all areas except Hokkaido and Okinawa. "Recently, pottery fragments about1.5000 years ago were unearthed in Shimonoseki, Nagano Prefecture and Jianxianshan, Kagoshima Prefecture. Among them, the firing temperature of Kagoshima pottery is only 400-500 degrees, and the texture is loose and not completely vitrified, which can be described as a veritable earthenware. 1999, plain pottery was unearthed at No.1 Dapingshan Site in Aomori Prefecture, Japan. The carbon dating of carbides attached to pottery fragments is165.2 million years-149.2 million years, which has caused a sensation in the international archaeological community. " [17], but the production and production of these pottery pieces were not found. According to textual research, the early pottery in China, Japan, South Siberia, Russia and other regions where pottery first appeared in the world was mostly round spheres, and there were few flat-bottomed utensils. The reason is that besides imitating the shape of plant shells widely used by human beings before the appearance of pottery, it is also relatively easy to make and has a large volume. "The original pottery first considered the need for cooking, and then the need for storage, or the pot for cooking first, and then the bowl for rice. When the bottom vessel is supported on several stones, it can be heated by fire, and it is relatively stable and has good heat collection function "[18]. Obviously, the early pottery was made in a bottom shape, not in imitation of woven fabric, because the latter was generally not in a bottom shape, which was neither practical nor necessary. It can be seen that Engels' judgment on the origin of pottery is incorrect, and the information and understanding from cultural anthropology cannot be directly equated with the cultural phenomenon in the Neolithic Age.
; ; ; When analyzing Banpo-style settlements, houses and the family and marriage pattern of Yangshao culture found in Banpo and Jiangzhai sites, Mr. Yan Wenming thinks that those small houses with stoves, cookers and eating utensils, 1.5 meters wide mud beds and little grain reserves should be places for couples who have lived in bigamy and their babies, while the elderly and older children may have to live in medium-sized houses or other small houses. At the same time, he made a comment: Some people said, "The level of production technology in primitive society is so low that it is not easy to build a house. How can it be as spacious as we live now? " Once upon a time, the poor Yi people put on sacks and slept under the eaves for one night. Isn't a house in Yangshao 10-20 square meters enough 10-20 people squatting? On the surface, this seems to make some sense. If all the houses are empty, there is no way to refute these specious statements "[19]. This means that ethnological materials cannot be used to measure and compare the materials found in prehistoric archaeology. If we open our eyes, we will find that the phenomena and situations mentioned by Mr. Yan here are not isolated:
In West Asia, there was the Neolithic Age of pottery about 9,000-8,000 years ago, and primitive buildings, houses and houses with high skills generally appeared in settlement sites with a certain scale: square houses built with mud bricks in the Neolithic Age of pottery before Hajiral site, with large walls based on stones, walls and floors coated with plaster, pebbles or pebbles on the ground of important rooms, and doorways may be located on the roof; In the late period of the existence of pottery and Neolithic, there were 9 houses in the site, all of which were 10.5m long and 6m wide, with square brick walls 1m thick and based on stones, and each house had two doors [20]. The site of KiLoki Tia is located on a steep mountain. The lower part of the wall of the house is generally made of limestone, and the upper part and round roof are made of clay, adobe and other materials. Some houses have double walls. There are two stone pillars supporting the semi-circular attic in the big house. There is a small ladder up and down in the attic, which may be a sleeping place. There are living facilities such as stoves on the stone floor in the house, and there is a courtyard surrounded by walls outside the house. Some houses also have corridors, warehouses, rice mills, kitchens and stone tables [2 1]. The houses found in Xiuyu Site in Catal are made of adobe, and each house consists of a living room with an area of 5m× 4m and one or several attached rooms. The house is flat-topped, with reeds and dry bricks on two beams and many small beams. There is a rectangular entrance on the roof for entry and exit, and there is a low doorway connecting the living room and the annex room. The height of the doorway is only 77 cm. There are wooden ladders, stoves, fuel cabinets, platforms and benches for sitting and lying in the south of the house ... "[22]. There are three T-shaped buildings with brick structure in Suowan site, which are composed of many large and small rooms with regular layout. The floor and walls of the house are covered with mud, and the buttresses outside support the planks that support the roof. One of the buildings seems to have a religious function, and a "mother idol" was found in a niche in a room [23]. 1999—2000, an international archaeological team led by German archaeologist Hans Georg Gabel discovered an early Neolithic tomb and many murals in Baya village, Jordan. At the same time, the site also shows that people built some two-story houses about 9000 years ago, showing the extremely high architectural level of the residents at that time. Archaeologists said that this achievement was even more remarkable considering that Baya Village was built on a steep rock slope about 65,438+0,000 meters high and it was difficult to communicate with the outside world [24]. In China, during the Yangshao period from 7,000 to 5,000 years ago, the architectural technology and achievements were also very impressive: F90 1, a large-scale building base of Yangshao culture in Dadiwan, Qin 'an County, Gansu Province, was called "the site of primitive palace", with a total area of 420 square meters, consisting of a main hall, left and right side rooms, a back room and a front annex building; Its main hall is ten columns and nine rooms according to the framework principle of later generations, and its top pillar is 57cm； in diameter; In the main room, three small wooden columns or boards with a diameter of about 10 cm are respectively set up outside the two larger wooden columns of the auxiliary pillars, and then wrapped with grass mud to form a large column with an outer diameter of 80 cm, and then plastered with plaster; Its walls are made of stewed soil, and the walls are compacted with lime. Life is paved with carbon stone, as bright and hard as today's terrazzo floor. According to the technical appraisal of the laboratory of Gansu Provincial Museum, the physical properties of this kind of stone after fire pulverization are equivalent to the modern 100 bauxite cement [25]. 15, the Diaolongbei site in Zaoyang, Hubei, and the Fufeng chopping board in Shaanxi have the same construction scale and technology as that in Dadiwan F90 1. The wall of the former is planted with dense wood, and the spacing between wooden columns is only 1- 10 cm. "All the wood is carefully selected and finely processed, and its shape is square. There are more than 220 piles and logs in Hemudu site 7000 years ago, which are regularly arranged in four rows, with a total width of about 7 meters, and the longest row of piles is 23 meters long, so its indoor area should be above 160 square meters [28]. From 1999 to 200 1 year, Chinese archaeologists conducted archaeological excavations at the site on the west slope of Lingbao, Henan Province, and found that the Yangshao culture super-large building site was 5,500 years ago, with an overall area of 5 16 square meters, surrounded by cloisters, and its column holes were mostly between 0.45 and 0.7 meters in diameter. The indoor living area is divided into five floors from top to bottom. Archaeologists believe that according to the substructure, the house may be a building with four sides inclined, or it may be a double-eave structure because of its large area, wide span and complex layout. " From the well-preserved substructure, it is not difficult to imagine what a magnificent building this house used to be "[29]. Whether it is the Neolithic culture in West Asia or the Neolithic culture in China in Yangshao era, the achievements and heights of its architecture are beyond the reach of the original tribes and indigenous people on earth at present and now, not to mention the pyramids, obelisks and temples in ancient Egypt, the buildings of cities, palaces and temples in ancient Indian civilization, Babylonian civilization and Sumerian civilization, Mayan civilization and Minoan civilization. Therefore, it can be seen that the materials of primitive tribes and backward ethnic groups still existing in modern times investigated by cultural anthropology have little comparability with ancient civilizations such as China, West Asia, Egypt and India and their Neolithic age. ;
A large number of "ash pits" discovered in Neolithic archaeology in China have always been regarded as "garbage pits" and "sacrificial pits". In recent years, some scholars have found that some "ash pits" may actually be "grain pits" and some may be "small paddy fields" or "puddles", "ponds", "wells" and "fish ponds" and other farmland. Mr. Liu Zhiyi thinks that the theory of "sacrificial pit" is debatable, because in "ancient primitive sacrifice", even the gods who sacrificed to the earth did not have the custom of digging a pit for sacrifice. It was only in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties or earlier Xia Dynasty that the custom of digging a pit for sacrifice appeared [30]. Recently, archaeologists in Sichuan have noticed this problem: more than 120 ash pits with different shapes and specifications have been discovered at Yingpanshan site in Maoxian county. They made a concrete analysis and speculation on these ash pits, and thought that "the bottom and periphery of some ash pits are composed of pebbles (some of which contain large pebbles), and it is speculated that they should be places for stone tool processing or have other uses. Stones coated with bright red pigments have also been found in some ash pits, which may have some religious significance. In some pits, a large number of pottery piles were found, which should be the pits of special significance, mainly used for burying pottery. Several round bag-shaped ash pits with small mouth and big bottom are flat and deep, which may be pits for storing food and other objects [3 1]. Once, when excavating the Xiaojiawuji site in Tianmen, Hubei, it was found that there was a big pond in the middle of the site, which was first destroyed as a religious relic. Later, I paid attention to the cleaning and observation of the pond details. Through the analysis and inference of the ruins and accumulation at the edge, bottom and nearby of the pond, it is found that the pond should be a place related to activities such as washing hands, making stone tools and perhaps drawing domestic water, which basically denies the original speculation of religious relics [32]. When talking about architectural archaeology, Mr. Yang Hongxun said: "The wooden shaft at the bottom of the Neolithic ancient pond was dug up and interpreted as the remains of the' primitive worship building'; Mistaken the ruins of the' earth steps' of the Shang Palace as a complete' altar' ... "And so on, these mistakes are caused by lack of professional knowledge [33]. Dividing many production and living sites into religious sites and places of worship is not only related to careless work and lack of professional knowledge, but also has a potential or obvious concept and impression at work, that is, Neolithic people (that is, primitive people) are ignorant, and everything in life is full of gods, and sacrifices and sacrifices are everywhere. The existence of this concept and impression is obviously related to some understandings and viewpoints of cultural anthropology.
A large number of "bones" and rice remains were unearthed in Hemudu culture 7000 years ago. Scholars have done a lot of research on the shape, use and farming methods of Hemudu "bone" according to literature and ethnological data, and there are different opinions. Mr. Wayne Huang analyzed the processing, using characteristics and traces of all kinds of "bones and bones" in detail, and thought that the "bones and bones" unearthed from Hemudu site actually contained the blade characteristics of "bones and bones" specially used for cultivated land, "bones and bones" used for trimming paddy fields and "levelers" used for leveling farmland. Slash-and-burn' is not suitable for rice cultivation in Hemudu plain swamp. He finally said: "In the past, scholars' discussions on Hemudu bones focused on the textual research of ancient literature and the citation of ethnological materials, while ignoring the excavation of ready-made archaeological materials. The author here is not to belittle and despise the position of literature, history and ethnology materials in archaeological research, but to explain that archaeological research should focus on archaeological excavation materials, and literature, history and ethnology materials can be used as necessary supplements and circumstantial evidence for our further research, making our research more objective and true. Mr. Lin, a famous anthropologist, said in his works: "Pigs and sheep occupy a less important position in primitive life" [35], which is obviously contrary to the archaeological discovery and research in the Neolithic age in China, because pigs are very important in primitive human life, whether as food, nutrition source, material wealth or as symbols and metonymies of spiritual beliefs and primitive religions [36]. Mr. Lin's understanding is obviously not based on archaeological data.
2. About spiritual culture
Regarding the spiritual culture of primitive society and prehistoric period, the most important spiritual belief and worship object of primitive human beings, the most common impression people may have is "totem". If you answer this question to middle school students, nine times out of ten they will say: totem; If there is an image of an ancient culture of animals, plants and utensils on TV or in books, it looks very important, and most literate people will blurt it out, that is totem. "Slapping fat" is so common in primitive human life and modern people's minds. Not only do most archaeologists and historians think that the animal patterns and their symbolic patterns on painted pottery in the Neolithic Age are the totem signs of ancient clans and tribes [37], but "at present, I have only been exposed to the cultures of ancient ethnic groups in China, not only archaeologists and historians have mentioned totems, but also ethnologists, religious scholars, ancient philologists, psychologists, aestheticians and so on. However, many writings often simply apply' totem' together, and generally lack due argumentation and specific explanation "[38]. Famous scholars who study primitive culture are no exception. For example, Mr. Judy has such a direct and concise judgment: "1963, in the Longshan cultural site in Rizhao, Shandong Province, the animal face decoration found on a stone tool is very similar to the gluttonous pattern, while the painted pottery on Banpo has deer patterns; A pig's head pattern was found at Dawenkou site in Pixian County, Jiangsu Province (there seems to be a misunderstanding here: Dawenkou site is in Taian County, Shandong Province, while there is a Dadunzi site of Dawenkou culture in Pixian County, Jiangsu Province-Wang Xiansheng); There are dog patterns on the painted pottery of Majiayao culture type and Xindian culture. In this way, underground excavation shows that totem theory is not groundless "[39]. Mr. Ding Shan said: "In the clan society, totem is a god, and every family has a totem in its mouth to protect their clan. The so-called totem poles are generally carved into the shapes of birds, beasts and monsters [40]. Mr. Lu Sixian went on to say, "It's the demon of birds and beasts. In the ancient legends of China, dragons and phoenixes are the most famous. Other tigers, leopards, bears, turtles, turtles, snakes and fish, including those flying in the sky, crawling on the ground, swimming in the water and living in caves, are everywhere, with trees and pillars. They are installed on totem poles, and there are many clans and totem poles. At that time, there were probably countless totem poles on the motherland. Or it can be said that the clan system era is a totem era and a totem world, so totem culture and totem are the core or program of primitive culture "[4 1]. Some scholars have made statistics and induction on the "totems" of ethnic minorities in China today. Many ethnic groups have dozens of totems, and some have only one or two [42]. About which nation often deals with which animals and plants, respecting them and displaying them on the utensils of daily life need to be used in etiquette activities and become the totem of that nation. Does "totem" really exist so widely and profoundly in the prehistoric times of China and the life and spiritual world of primitive people? We need to take a closer look at this.
The authoritative Ci Hai explains "totem worship", saying that it is "the earliest religious belief in primitive society, which happened at the same time as clan commune", while clan commune "originated in the late Paleolithic period in archaeology" [43]. Scholars who study totem culture say: "Most scholars in the world believe that totem culture was formed in the middle and late Paleolithic period, while Neolithic period was the decline and evolution period of totem culture." "According to foreign archaeological data, totem culture occurred in the middle Paleolithic period and flourished in the late Paleolithic period and the Middle Stone Age. Many cave murals and sculptures found in Europe belonging to the Paleolithic Age proved that totem ceremonies and totem songs and dances were colorful at that time. "The Neolithic Age was the period when totem culture began to decline. "