Prologue

Henry Clark sat on a modified bus, gazing at the endless mountains outside the window. Summer solstice had just passed, and the mountains were full of vibrant green. After living in the city for so long, seeing such scenery lifted his spirits, which had been clouded by career setbacks. Originally, Henry Clark had planned to invite a few friends on a trip to relax, but unexpectedly ran into his fellow townsman and old classmate William Grant, who studied archaeology, and got dragged along for an archaeological dig.

This trip was to a rather remote mountain village, where Stone Age artifacts had reportedly been discovered. A first group had already gone, and this was the second batch.

Henry Clark listened as his old classmate talked about everything from primitive human skulls to stone tools and then to rock paintings, even pulling out a few pictures for detailed explanations. People who do research are like this—once they get into it, it's hard to pull them out. Although Henry Clark didn't really understand, he still listened politely.

The papers were all reproductions of rock paintings discovered in previous archaeological studies. Henry Clark glanced at them and thought they weren't even as good as the drawings his niece and nephew did in kindergarten.

The lines in those pictures were quite simple. You could roughly make out people holding tools and hunting, as well as various animals. The rest were unidentifiable.

"Is this supposed to be a sheep? But this sheep is way too big." Henry Clark pointed at one of the pictures.

The picture showed a sheep with long, huge, curved horns, and next to it was a person holding a bow and arrow. But the proportions looked off—the person's head only reached the sheep's back. The next few pictures were the same: a rabbit as big as a lion, and in the one on the left with someone riding a horse, the horse's tail was drawn way too short.

Of course, not every picture had such odd proportions. Rock paintings from different provinces and periods had different styles. Some later ones had more realistic proportions, and you could see a group of people hunting with dogs.

Flipping further, there were a few color-printed pictures, which were even clearer.

"Ha, this one is even more exaggerated. The deer's antlers are enormous, and look at this person—in the last picture, the person only reached the sheep's back, but here, the person is barely taller than the deer's leg... And what's that in the lower right corner, an eight-legged crocodile?" Henry Clark really couldn't appreciate the primitive art style.

"Primitive humans probably didn't care much about that," William Grant explained.

"So you mean that when primitive humans painted, they didn't aim for 'realism' in proportions, but used exaggeration?" Henry Clark asked.

"I suppose so," William Grant scratched his head. "After all, people of that era weren't particular about aesthetics. It might have been purely symbolic. For example, a researcher once speculated that when people drew these hunting scenes on cave walls or rocks, it might have been for the warriors to look at before a hunt, to get in the right mindset, or maybe there were rituals we don't know about. Especially those rock paintings drawn by 'shamans.'"

"Shamans, huh..." Henry Clark pictured an eccentric old mystic in his mind.

"Hey, what's with that look? Let me tell you, 'shamans' might not have had low status in those human communities. On the contrary, they could have been quite high-ranking."

"Yeah, charlatans," Henry Clark nodded.

William Grant waved his finger, took a folder containing some scanned copies of drawings, and pointed to some pictures and text, saying to Henry Clark, "If totemic consciousness represents the anthropomorphization of nature and the collective unity of the self, then shamanistic beliefs represent the naturalization of humans. The 'shaman' profession actually appeared as early as the Stone Age..."

William Grant went on and on about the research progress on the 'shaman' profession from ancient times to the present, throwing out technical terms and quoting sources, making Henry Clark's head hurt.

Henry Clark didn't know much about this field and wasn't interested. If it weren't for having an old classmate who studied archaeology, Henry Clark wouldn't have known any of this. He used to think archaeology was just about valuable antiques, but William Grant's research was even older than antiques—so old that hardly anyone cared. Just a few days ago, he heard a radio debate about whether "Darwin's theory of evolution" or the "alien creation hypothesis" was correct. Henry Clark only listened because he had nothing better to do, and forgot about it right after.

On the other hand, Henry Clark knew his childhood friend was fascinated by ancient humans. Back in high school, he often discussed the mysterious disappearances of ancient human remains unearthed in modern history.

"You wouldn't understand the technical stuff, so let me put it simply. Look!" William Grant pointed at a spot on a picture. "The 'shaman' is mentioned in oracle bone inscriptions and bronze script, but like this."

Henry Clark looked at where William Grant was pointing. It was a symbol that looked like two '工' characters crossed together.