The article is devoted to the social ontological analysis of culture in its anthropological reflection. The problem field of the ontology of culture initially involves the process of anthropogenesis. We are talking about the consideration of the origin of human society and culture with the help of the comparative-historical method of genealogy, aimed at identifying the origins and beginnings of human existence. The specificity of the philosophical method of Friedrich Nietzsche’s genealogy is considered. The complexity and multi-aspect of the problem of anthropogenesis using the example of archaic culture is revealed. It includes myth and symbol, language and activity, sacred and profane, physical and spiritual in their historical development. The basic characteristics of human existence namely space and time are analyzed and their differences from the modern understanding of these categories are determined. The consciousness of the ancient man is drawn to the source of time, and therefore it performs a heuristic function. The beginning of time contains archetypes, the ideal examples of cultural life. Somatic models of the world of Archaic are associated with the techniques of creating a sacred space, with places of memory, and social memory. Genesis is understood as the emergence and development of culture as a specific means of human life, which reveals itself historically as a process of cultural heritage, different from the world of nature.