Animals and humans are part of a single chain of all living things, two poles of the living world. By looking deep into the past and reconstructing the ancient customs and rituals of various peoples of Europe and Asia, the authors seek answers to the following questions: How did human society originate? What made a human being truly human? Why did apes remain apes? Why do people kill their own kind with beastly cruelty? And why is it that only humans are capable of uniting through labor and collective creation?