BBC 100件藏品中的世界史002:Olduvai Stone Chopping Tool奧杜瓦伊石質(zhì)切割工具

BBC 100件藏品中的世界史

002 : Olduvai Stone Chopping Tool 奧杜瓦伊石質(zhì)切割工具

Abstract摘要 :

Olduvai stone chopping tool (made 1.8 million years ago) found in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, East Africa.

奧杜瓦伊(Olduvai)石質(zhì)切割工具(180萬年前)，出土于東非坦桑尼亞奧杜瓦伊(Olduvai)峽谷

【MP3聽力原文】

Perhaps the best thing of all about being Director of the British Museum, and one that still gives me the most enormous thrill is that, now and then, I'm allowed to take some of the objects out of the cases and hold them.

作為大英博物館館長，大概最美好一件事便是我偶爾可以拿出展柜中的某些物品握在手中。我至今仍為之心潮澎湃。

And today I'm being allowed to hold something absolutely astonishing. I've got to admit that if any of us saw this just lying on the ground, we'd probably walk past it, but in fact it's the oldest object in the British Museum, and it was made nearly two million years ago, in Africa. It looks like a large, chipped grey cobble. The naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough is, along with me, the latest hominid to handle it:

今天，我就被批準拿出一樣極其驚世駭俗的物品。我得承認，如果我們只是看到它毫不起眼地擺在地上，很可能就一帶而過了，但事實讓，它可是大英博物館最古老的展品。它來自于200萬年前的非洲大陸，看上去就像一塊人為切割過的灰色大卵石。我和博物學家兼廣播員大衛(wèi)?阿滕伯勒爵士(Sir David Attenborough)是最近一次觸摸過它的人科動物。

"Holding this, I can feel what it was like to be out on the African savannahs, needing to cut flesh for example, needing to cut into a carcass, in order to get a meal."

“握著它，我便能感受到非洲大草原上的野外生活——為了一頓飯，要剔骨剜肉。”

This is one of the first things that humans ever consciously made. And holding it puts me directly in touch with them. In this history of the world that I'm trying to tell through 'things', this chipped stone from Africa - from modern Tanzania - is where it all begins.

這是人類自覺制作的首批工具之一，一拿起它，我就能感受到與祖先一脈相承的聯(lián)系。在這個以人造物為線索的世界簡史系列節(jié)目中，這件來自當今坦桑尼亞地區(qū)的非洲打制石器乃人類世界萬物之端。

One of the points of any museum is to allow you to travel through time, but our understanding of just how much time there is for us to travel through has expanded dramatically since the British Museum opened its doors in 1759. At that point, most of the visitors would probably have agreed that the world had begun in 4004 BC, to be precise at the very beginning of Sunday 23 October.

所有博物館的目標之一就是引領你穿越時間，然而，自1759年大英博物館開啟重門以來，我們時光之旅的界限便與日俱增。過去，也許大多參觀者的共識是世界開始于公元前4400年，更精確地說，是10月23日星期天的零點。

This astonishingly exact date had been calculated by the mathematically-minded clergyman Archbishop Ussher, who preached just down the road in Lincoln's Inn. Ussher had carefully trawled the Bible totting up the lifespan of everyone descended from Adam and Eve to reach his date but, as you and I know, we don't now celebrate 23 October as Start the World Day and that's because, in the last couple of centuries, archaeologists, geologists and museum curators have steadily been pushing back the chronology of human history - back from Archbishop Ussher's six thousand years to an almost unimaginable two million.

這一精確得不可思議的時間是由一位頗具數(shù)學頭腦的神職人員厄舍(Ussher)計算出來的，他布道的地點就在本街的林肯律師學院。他一絲不茍地查閱了《圣經(jīng)》，統(tǒng)計亞當夏娃所有后裔的壽命才得出這一結(jié)果，但就我們所知，沒有人慶祝10月23號的“世界開始日”，因為幾個世紀以來，考古學家、地質(zhì)學家以及博物館館長一直在把人類歷史紀年不斷推延——從厄舍大主教的6000年到難以置信的200萬年。

So if the scientists have been suggesting that Adam and Eve no longer stood at the beginning of human time in the Garden of Eden in 4004 BC, who did? And where? There are many theories, but no conclusive answers and certainly no conclusive date until 1931, when a young archaeologist called Louis Leakey set off on a British Museum-sponsored expedition bound for Africa.

既然科學家推測公元前4400年伊甸園中的亞當夏娃已非人類的先驅(qū)，那么彼何人斯，彼何處斯?曾有過許多理論，但直至1931年，有一位名為路易斯?李基(Louis Leaky)的青年考古學家在大英博物館的資助下遠征非洲，他的考古發(fā)現(xiàn)為這個問題做出了明確的解答。

Leakey's goal was Olduvai Gorge, a deep crack in the flat savannah of northern Tanzania, not far from the border with Kenya. It's part of the East African Rift Valley, a massive tear in the earth's surface, thousands of miles long. It was here that time had been frozen within exposed layers of geology where, as Leakey examined the rocks shaped by the sun, the wind and the rain on the savannahs, he reached a layer where the rocks were also shaped by something else - human hands.

李基(Leakey)的目的地是北坦桑尼亞與肯尼亞交界附近的奧杜瓦伊(Olduvai)峽谷——平坦大草原上一道幽深的裂痕。它所隸屬的東非大裂谷是地球表面長達幾千英里的巨大縫隙，在這里，時光凝結(jié)在那些飽經(jīng)大草原風吹日曬雨淋的裸露的地質(zhì)層中?？脊胚^程中，李基(Leakey)檢測到其中一個巖層由某種非自然力塑造而成——那是人類的雙手。

They were found next to bones, and it was clear that these stones had been shaped into butchering tools to strip meat and break into the bones of animals killed on the savannah. The layer where the tools were found was roughly two million years old. This was archaeological dynamite

這些石器發(fā)現(xiàn)于散落的骨骼周圍，顯然是用于剔骨剜肉的屠宰工具。該地質(zhì)層粗略估計約200萬年歷史。這一發(fā)現(xiàn)在當時的考古學界可謂爆炸性的新聞。

Leakey's excavations produced the oldest humanly made things anywhere in the world, and they demonstrated that not only human beings, but human culture, had begun in Africa. Our stone chopping tool was one of the ones that Leakey found.

李基(Leakey)發(fā)掘出的是全世界最古老的人造物，它們表明，不僅是人類，甚至于人類文明，皆發(fā)端于非洲。我們要介紹的打制石器就是李基(Leakey)挖掘的文物之一。

"Picking it up, your first reaction is it's very heavy, and if it's heavy of course it gives power behind your blow. The second is that it fits without any compromise into the palm of the hand, and in a position where there is a sharp edge running from my forefinger to my wrist.

“你拿起它，第一反應就是它沉甸甸的，這樣它的重力為擊打提供沖力。其次它恰到好處地符合你的手掌，鋒利的刀刃正好位于食指和手腕之間。那現(xiàn)在我手里握著一把鋒利的刀。

So I have in my hand now a sharp knife. And what is more, it's got a bulge on it so I can get a firm grip on the edge which has been chipped specially, which is sharp ... I could perfectly effectively cut meat with this. That's the sensation I have that links me with the man who actually laboriously chipped it once, twice, three times, four times, five times on one side. One, two, three ... three times at the other ... so eight specific actions by him, knocking it with another stone, to take off a flake, and to leave this almost straight line, which is a sharp edge." (David Attenborough)

此外，特別制作的凸起部分有助于我穩(wěn)穩(wěn)地握住利刃兩端……我能用它非常有效地切肉。這種感覺讓我和它的制作者息息相通，他費力地在一邊敲擊了一，二，三，四，五……五次，另一邊一，二，三……三次。他用另一塊石頭總共敲擊了八次來剝落多余的部分，打制出這道近于筆直的利刃。”——大衛(wèi)?阿滕伯勒 (David Attenborough)

In the British Museum, we've recently made a new chopping tool using the same techniques as would have been used in Olduvai Gorge. If I now hold that new one in my hand, it becomes very clear how well you can use it to strike meat off an animal. We don't have any African wildebeests to hand, so I can try it using a bit of roast chicken.

最近，大英博物館仿奧杜瓦伊(olduvai)峽谷工藝制作了一個新的切割工具。我現(xiàn)在拿著它剃肉，切身感受其操作方式。我們手頭沒有非洲牛羚，所以我用一塊兒燒雞來小試牛刀。

But these chopping tools are marvellous and quick at getting the meat off the bone and then, with one sharp blow, I could break the bone and we'd be able to get to the marrow. But you can of course use a tool like this also to strip bark off trees or roots, so that you could eat them as well.

這些工具剃起肉來非常輕松，而且我只要重重一擊，就能打斷骨頭得到骨髓。當然，你還可以用它剝掉樹皮和根皮食用。

This is, in fact, a very very versatile kitchen implement. The early humans who used chopping tools like this were probably not hunters themselves, but they were brilliant opportunists - they waited until lions, leopards or other beasts had killed their prey and then they moved in with their chopping tools, secured the meat and the marrow, and hit the protein jackpot.

它可真是一個多功能廚房用具呢!使用諸如此類工具的早期人類也許本身并非狩獵者，而是聰明的機會主義者：他們靜候獅子、豹子以及其他野獸殺死獵物時，便帶著切割工具緊隨其上，護住肉和骨髓，然后享用這筆富含蛋白質(zhì)的飛來橫財。

Marrow fat doesn't sound tremendously appetising, but it is hugely nutritious - fuel not just for physical strength but also for a large brain. The brain is an extremely power- hungry mechanism. Although it accounts for only 2 per cent of our body weight, it consumes 20 per cent of our entire energy intake, and it requires constant nourishment. Our ancestors of nearly two million years ago, secured their future by being really rather sneaky.

骨髓雖不是什么美味，但營養(yǎng)豐富，既能增強體力，又能滋養(yǎng)大腦。人腦是非常耗能的生理結(jié)構(gòu)，盡管重量僅為體重的2%，卻可消耗20%的能量攝入，并需要源源不斷的養(yǎng)分供給。200萬年前，我們的祖先正是用這樣一種相當卑鄙的方式保障了他們的未來。那些強壯、迅捷、兇猛的狩獵者乘涼休息時，我們的祖先便伺機而動，尋找食物。

When stronger, faster fiercer predators were at rest out of the heat, 'they' were able to look for food. Using tools like this one to obtain bone marrow, the most nutritious part of a carcass, they set in train an ancient virtuous circle. This food for body and mind, meant that larger-brained individuals would survive to breed larger-brained children, capable in their turn of making ever more complex tools, and you and I are just the latest iteration of this continuing process.

他們利用這類工具獲得最有營養(yǎng)的骨髓，建立起了遠古時代的良性循環(huán)系統(tǒng)：腦體積較大的原始人生存下來，相應地繁衍出腦體積較大的后代，這些后代繼而能制作出更加復雜的工具，你我不過是這一周而復始的循環(huán)過程的終端。

Lots of animals use objects, particularly of course apes, but what sets us apart from them at this moment in our evolution is that, unlike them, we make tools before we need them. And once we have used them we keep them to use again. It's the beginning of the tool box.

能夠利用物品的動物不在少數(shù)，類人猿就是一典型代表。但在人類進化史的這一點上，能將我們和這些動物相區(qū)別的是，我們可以依據(jù)需求制作工具，使用過后，我們會保存工具以備不時之需——這就是工具箱的由來。

The human brain then carries on evolving steadily over thousands of years. And what's really interesting, is that our brain starts to become asymmetrical as it gets to grips with a whole range of different functions - logic, language, the co-ordinated movement needed for tool-making, imagination and creative thought - quite unlike the ape's brain, which remains smaller and symmetrical. So what we're looking at in this chopping tool is the moment at which we became distinctly smarter and with an impulse not just to make things, but to imagine how we could make things 'better'.

隨后的幾千年，人腦穩(wěn)步進化。有趣的是，隨著人腦功能的分化，衍生出邏輯、語言、以及與制作工具、想象力和創(chuàng)造性思維相關的協(xié)調(diào)運動等，人腦開始變得不再對稱，與類人猿小而對稱的大腦形成對比。所以，這個工具記錄了這樣一個時刻，我們不僅擁有了更加聰明的頭腦和制作工具的沖動，而且嘗試著精益求精。

"This object sits at the base of a process which has become almost obsessive amongst human beings. This object is something created from a natural substance for a particular purpose, and in a particular way, with a notion in the maker's mind of what he needed it for.

“這件工具是人類苛求完美的最初表現(xiàn)。這件物品是制作者依據(jù)需要，利用自然物加以創(chuàng)造，為特殊的目的服務，用特殊的方式打制。

Is it more complex than was needed to actually serve the function which he used it for? I think you could almost say it is. Did he really need to do one, two, three, four, five chips on one side and four on the other? Could he have got away with two? I think he might have done so.

那么這件工具的復雜程度是否已經(jīng)超出所需?我想你可以這樣講。他真的需要在一面炮制一，二，三，四，五次，另一面四次嗎?兩次行不行?我想他本可以這樣做。

I think the man or woman who held this, made it just for that particular job and perhaps got some satisfaction from knowing that it was going to do it very effectively, very economically and very neatly. In time, you'd say he'd done it beautifully but, maybe not yet ... the start of a journey." (David Attenborough)

我想拿著這件特別設計的工具的人，當預料到那些復雜工序?qū)⑹顾僮髌饋矸浅Ｓ行?、省力、靈活時，大概是獲得了某種滿足感。最終，你會承認他把工具做的很精美，但現(xiàn)在還為時過早……這才僅僅是千里之行的第一步。”——大衛(wèi)?阿滕伯勒(David Attenborough)

Without those extra chips on the edge of the chopping tool, this whole series would be impossible, because those chips tell us that right from the beginning, we - unlike other animals - have wanted to make things more complicated than they need to be. You see, objects carry powerful messages about their makers, and the chopping tool is the beginning of a relationship between humans and the things they create, which is both a love affair and a dependency.

倘若沒有那額外的幾次敲擊，也就不會有這些后話，這些敲敲打打說明人類一開始便與眾不同，總是嘗試著制作出比實際需要更加復雜的東西。你看，物品能強烈地傳達出其制作者的信息，這件切割工具便反映出人和人造物之間的最初關系——既是愛戀，又是依賴。

From this point on, we can't survive without the things we make and, in this sense, it is making things that makes us human. Leakey's discoveries in the warm earth of the Rift Valley did more than push humans back in time, they made it clear that all of us descend from those African ancestors, that every one of us is part of a huge African diaspora - we all have Africa in our DNA and all our culture began in the same place. Wangari Maathai is a Kenyan environmentalist and a Nobel Peace Prize winner:

自這一刻起，我們離了人造物便無法生存。從這個角度講，是制作物品造就了人類。在東非大裂谷溫暖的泥土里，李基(Leakey)的發(fā)現(xiàn)不僅推延了人類的歷史，其更深刻的意義在于它表明我們均為非洲祖先流散在各地后裔，我們的DNA中均含有非洲的遺傳密碼，我們的文明一脈相承。王蓋里?瑪太(Wangari Maathai)是一位肯尼亞環(huán)保主義者和諾貝爾和平獎得主：

"So far it seems like the information we have tells us that we came from somewhere within this part of the world in eastern Africa. And that of course for many people must be surprising - because I think we are so used to being divided along ethnic lines, along racial lines, and we look all the time for reasons to be different from each other - it must be surprising to some of us to realise that what differentiates us is usually very superficial, like the colour of your skin or the colour of your eyes or the texture of your hair, but essentially that we are all from the same stem, the same origin. So, I think that as we continue to understand ourselves and to appreciate each other, and especially when we get to understand, for example, that we all come from the same origin - we will shed a lot of the prejudices that we have harboured in the past."

“我們當前所掌握的信息顯示我們均源自于這里——東非的某個區(qū)域。這個結(jié)論聽上去匪夷所思，因為我們早已習慣于各種各樣的民族劃分和種族劃分，而且我們追求與眾不同，所以當人們意識到我們的區(qū)別通常只是膚色、眼珠色和發(fā)質(zhì)這些膚淺的因素時，一定覺得非常不可思議。事實上，我們本是同根生。我想，當我們不斷嘗試了解自己、欣賞他人，特別是認識到我們同根同源時，那些冥頑不化的偏見便會蕩然無存。”

Listening to the news on the radio, it's easy to imagine the world is divided into rival tribes and competing civilisations. So it's good, it's essential in fact, to be reminded that the idea of our common humanity is not just an enlightenment dream, but a genetic and a cultural reality. It's something we'll see again and again in this series.

聽著收音機播報的新聞，我們不難想象世界被分割為彼此敵對的部落和相互競爭的文明。因此，我們記起普遍人性的理念不止是一個啟蒙的夢想，更是基因和文化的事實，這是非常重要的。這一點將在一系列節(jié)目中得到反復驗證。

Our next object is the tool that people took with them when they first left Africa and began to spread around the world - it's been called the Swiss Army knife of the Stone Age ... it's the hand axe.

我們下期介紹的是人類首次離開非洲、流向世界時所攜帶的工具，它有“石器時代的瑞士軍刀”的美譽——手斧。

小編補充：

The Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, retells the history of human development from the first stone axe to the credit card, using 100 selected objects from the Museum.

大英博物館館長尼爾?麥克?格雷戈爾(NeilMacGregor)通過精選的100件展品，向我們重述了人類由石斧頭到信用卡的進化史。

Neil goes back two million years to the Rift Valley in Tanzania, where a simple chipped stone marks the emergence of modern humans.

尼爾(Neil)重返200萬年前的坦桑尼亞裂谷，那里出土的一件拙樸的打制石器標志著晚期智人的誕生。

One of the characteristics that mark humans out from other animals is their desire for, and dependency on, the things they fashion with their own hands. Faced with the needs to cut meat from carcasses, early humans in Africa discovered how to shape stones into cutting tools. From that one innovation, a whole history of human development springs.

人類與其他動物的一大區(qū)別特征就是人類對親手創(chuàng)作的物品的渴求和依賴。應剔骨剜肉的需求，非洲大陸的早期人類發(fā)現(xiàn)了將石頭打造成切割工具的方法。從此，人類的進化史開始跨越式發(fā)展。

Neil tells the story of the Olduvai stone chopping tool with contributions from flint napper Phil Harding, Sir David Attenborough and African Nobel Prize winner Dr Wangeri Maathai.

尼爾(Neil)協(xié)同燧石拉毛工匠費爾?哈丁(Phil Harding)，大衛(wèi)?阿滕伯勒爵士(Sir David Attenborough)以及非裔諾貝爾獎得主王蓋里?瑪太(Wangeri Maathai)博士為我們講述奧杜瓦伊(Olduvai)石質(zhì)切割工具的歷史。

This chopping tool is the oldest humanly made object in the British Museum. It could be used for many purposes including chopping bones, plants and wood. By using a stone hammer to knock flakes off of a pebble our ancestors could make a tool with a sharp, functional edge. Olduvai is part of the great East African Rift Valley torn open by massive earthquakes. Many skulls and bones of our early ancestors have been found along this valley.

該切割工具為大英博物館最早的人造物。它用途繁多，既能切斷獸骨，也能砍伐植物和木材。我們的祖先用石錘敲擊卵石，剝落下一些碎石片，將其塑造成鋒利、實用的刀刃。奧杜瓦伊(Olduvai)是地震撕裂的東非大裂谷的一段，沿途出土了大量我們祖先的顱骨和骨骼。

Can we be human without objects?

倘若沒有這些人造物，我們還能被稱為人類嗎?

The invention of the first tools is one of the most important moments in human history. Making, using and sharing things played a key role in developing human behaviour. The ability to make tools allowed humans to adapt to new environments and out-compete other animals. Gradually it would lead to humans becoming the most successful animal in the world. All modern technology began with these first chopping tools.

早期工具的發(fā)明可謂是人類歷史上舉足輕重的一刻。制作，使用以及分享工具在人類行為進化過程中扮演重要角色。制作工具的能力幫助人類適應新環(huán)境和戰(zhàn)勝其他動物，并使人類逐漸演變?yōu)槭澜缟献顝姶蟮膭游?。這些早期的切割工具是一切現(xiàn)代科技的鼻祖。