Bear worship (also known as the bear cult or arctolatry) is the religious practice of the worshiping of bears found in many North Eurasian and North American ethnic religions such as the Sami, Nivkh, Ainu, and pre-Christian Basques and Finns. There are also a number of deities from Celtic Gaul and Britain associated with the bear, and the Dacians, Thracians, and Getians were noted to worship bears and annually celebrate the bear dance festival. The bear is featured on many totems throughout northern cultures that carve them. Bear worship may have been practiced as far back as the palaeolithic period amongst Neanderthal societies, as depicted in the historical novel The Clan of the Cave Bear.