["Sociology Lens, EarlyView. ", "\nABSTRACT\n“Primitive Daoism” (yuanshi daojiao 原始道教) and “early Daoism” (zaoqi daojiao 早期道教) are core categories in the historiography of Daoism. Their definitions directly concern significant academic issues such as the origin, essence, and evolutionary trajectory of Daoism. Previous scholarship has narrowly regarded “early Daoism” merely as “the early stage of Daoism,” confining it unilaterally to the period between the late Eastern Han dynasty and the Northern and Southern dynasties as the exclusive domain of “institutional Daoism” (zhidu daojiao 制度道教). However, archeological discoveries and sinological research indicate that this conceptual understanding no longer aligns with objective facts. By systematically tracing the conceptual history of “primitive Daoism” and “early Daoism,” this study reveals their evolution from overlapping connotations to paradigmatic differentiation. It proposes that “primitive Daoism” should be redefined, elevated to a category referring to the belief traditions of “ancient Daoism” (gu daojiao 古道教) from the middle to late Neolithic period, while “early Daoism” should be similarly redefined as a dynamic and composite religious formation. This formation, emerging from the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods through the Qin and Han dynasties, integrated ancient beliefs, Huanglao Dao (黄老道), Fangxian Dao (方仙道), the cult of the Queen Mother of the West (Wangmu Dao 王母道), Taiyi (太一) belief, ghost (gui 鬼) and deity (shen 神) cults, Yin‐Yang (阴阳) and Five Phases (wuxing 五行) thought, Chenwei (谶纬) prophetic texts, and other diverse belief traditions, transitioning toward an institutional religious community and persistently existing within the mythological context through the Northern and Southern dynasties and earlier. That is to say, to situate “early Daoism” within the historical context of a seemingly linear yet actually intertwined and parallel evolution between primitive Daoism and institutional Daoism, so as to construct a possible scheme for writing the history of Daoism or the intellectual history of Daoism.\n"]