Chapter 1 of your textbook explores the beginnings of human society and culture, so it is appropriate that this source book begins by looking at origin stories, the answers human societies have offered to the basic question of how the world began. The three origin stories included here were written down long after the period covered in this chapter, but the questions they raise are as old as human society itself. Evidence that this is the case is provided by the chapter’s final two primary sources, photographs of a Paleolithic grave site and an example of Paleolithic cave art. Humans communicated their thoughts, desires, anxieties, and stories for thousands of years before the invention of writing, and these artifacts offer clues about the beliefs and values of the people who created them. The sources included in this chapter strongly suggest that early human societies were concerned with more than mere survival; they were also built around ideas, religious beliefs, and aesthetic values.