BBC 100件藏品中的世界史003:Olduvai handaxe奧杜威手斧

BBC 100件藏品中的世界史

003 : EPISODE 3 - Olduvai handaxe

大英博物館百件物品之3：奧杜威手斧

Olduvai handaxe (made 1.2 - 1.4 million years ago) found in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, East Africa

奧杜威手斧，距今約一百二十至一百四十萬(wàn)年前，出土于東非坦桑尼亞奧杜威峽谷

What do you take with you when you travel? Most of us would embark on a long list that begins with a toothbrush and ends with excess baggage. But for most of human history, there was only one thing that you really needed in order to travel - a stone handaxe.

當(dāng)你旅行時(shí)隨身攜帶的物品是什么?我們中大多數(shù)人會(huì)開(kāi)出一張長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的清單，以牙刷開(kāi)頭，直到用超重的行李包結(jié)尾。但是在人類歷史上的多數(shù)階段，你旅行中真正需要的可能僅僅是一把石制手斧。

'They are just beautiful tools ...'

“它們真是美得純粹的工具呵……”

'Pretty sharp, around the edges, isn't it?'

“周邊邊緣真是鋒芒銳利，是吧?”

'I think whoever made this, did it very beautifully and carefully.'

“我覺(jué)得制造這工具的人，手藝堪稱鬼斧天工啊!”

'And once they'd been invented, if you want to use that word, they just never changed the design ... and I think that is the ultimate compliment to the design of a superb tool.'

“一旦它們被發(fā)明出來(lái)，其名字確認(rèn)下來(lái)，設(shè)計(jì)再也不曾被修改過(guò)。我覺(jué)得這種‘從來(lái)被模仿，不曾被超過(guò)’真是對(duì)一種超極工具的終極評(píng)價(jià)!”

It looks pretty straightforward, but in fact a handaxe is extremely tricky to make and, for over a million years, it was literally the cutting edge of technology. It accompanied our ancestors through half of their history, and was the main reason they spread first across Africa and then across the world.

它看起來(lái)相對(duì)簡(jiǎn)單，但其實(shí)制造一把手斧的工夫卻是非常棘手，而且在超過(guò)近百萬(wàn)年時(shí)光里，這一直領(lǐng)先的前沿工藝。它伴隨著我們老祖宗渡過(guò)近一半的人類歷史，同時(shí)也是他們得以走出非洲，遍布全球的原因。

For a million years the sound of making handaxes provided the percussion of everyday life. Anyone choosing a hundred objects to tell a history of the world would have to include a handaxe. All of this week I'm looking at objects from the very earliest moments of human history.

在將近百萬(wàn)年的時(shí)光里，制造手斧的聲音宛如人們?nèi)粘Ｉ罾锎驌魳?lè)器的樂(lè)聲。任何人企圖選擇百件物品來(lái)講敘一段世界歷史的，這石斧肯定是必選之物。本周以來(lái)我一直在尋找著一些來(lái)自于最早期人類歷史的物品。

Every object I've chosen is a document of the world in which it was made, but also marks a critical stage in the process by which we became fully human. And what I think makes this stone axe so interesting is how much it tells us, not just about the hand, but about the mind that made it.

我所選擇的每件物品本身都一份文件，承載著制造它那個(gè)世界的信息，同時(shí)也標(biāo)志著讓我們成為完整人類過(guò)程中的某個(gè)關(guān)鍵階段。我覺(jué)得讓這把石斧如何有趣，是因?yàn)樗粌H可以告訴我們其制造者手中的工藝，還有制造者腦里的想法。

The Olduvai Gorge handaxe doesn't, of course, look anything like a modern axe - there's no handle and there's no metal blade. It's in fact a piece of grey-green volcanic rock, a very beautiful grey-green, and it's in the shape of a tear-drop, and it's a lot more versatile than a modern straight axe would be.

奧杜威峽谷手斧肯定外表同現(xiàn)代斧頭是兩回事，既沒(méi)有手柄，也沒(méi)有金屬刀刃。其實(shí)這是一塊灰綠色的火山巖石，很漂亮的灰綠色，淚珠狀，同時(shí)它更比現(xiàn)代斧頭更加的多功能多用途。

The stone has been chipped to give you sharp edges along the long sides of the tear-drop, so to speak, and to give you a sharp point at one end. When you hold it up against a human hand, you are struck by how closely it matches the shape, although this one is unusually large and it is bigger than most human hands would be. It's also been very beautifully worked, and you can see the marks of the chipping that have shaped it.

這樣說(shuō)吧，沿著淚珠狀長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的側(cè)面，石頭被打磨得邊緣頗為鋒利，同時(shí)在一個(gè)端頭給你打磨出尖端。當(dāng)人類的手握住它時(shí)，它的形狀與人手之完美匹配，將給你留下深刻的印象;盡管這一塊出乎尋常的大，比絕大多數(shù)人手大得多。同時(shí)，它卻是一塊鬼斧神工的精品，你可以細(xì)細(xì)觀察那些塑造出它的打磨痕跡。

A handaxe like this was the Swiss Army knife of the Stone Age - an essential piece of technology with multiple uses. The pointed end could of course be used as a drill, while the long blades on either side would cut trees or meat or scrape bark or skins. You can imagine using this to butcher an elephant, to cut the hide and remove the meat.

諸如以類的手斧就是石器時(shí)代的瑞士軍刀，一種多功能多用途的必備良品。那尖端的一邊肯定可以當(dāng)成鉆頭，而兩邊長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的鋒利邊緣則可以用來(lái)伐樹(shù)割肉，或者刮樹(shù)皮扒獸皮。你可以想象一下用它來(lái)屠宰一頭大象，扒皮卸肉。

The very earliest tools, like the stone chopper we were looking at in the last programme, would strike all of us as pretty rudimentary. They look like chipped cobbles, and they were made simply by taking one large piece of stone and striking it with another, chipping off a few bits to make at least one sharp cutting edge.

那些最早的工具，如我們上期節(jié)目介紹過(guò)的石制砍砸器，讓我們的感覺(jué)是相當(dāng)之簡(jiǎn)陋。它們外表看來(lái)就像一顆顆稍稍錘擊過(guò)的鵝卵石，而且它們制作簡(jiǎn)單，通常就是拿兩顆石頭互相錘擊，至少把一端錘打出一個(gè)尖銳的邊緣出來(lái)。

But this handaxe is a very different matter. This is the expert stone-knapper, Phil Harding:

但是制作這種手斧卻完完全全是另一回事了。這是石器專家菲爾·哈?。?/p>

'Now you can see, here I've selected a piece of flint which is relatively long and thin - not a great deal of work to thin it down.

“現(xiàn)在你瞧瞧，這兒呢，我挑了塊燧石，比較細(xì)長(zhǎng)的，要削薄下來(lái)工作量并不大。”

'And what I do is, I select a hard stone hammer, in this case a quartzite pebble about the size of a cricket ball, and I elect to hit it in one place - and this is where I start to knap. Now once I've taken one flake off, what I do then is turn the flint over and I take a flake off the other side, and then I turn it back again, and pretty much, by the time I've got all the way round, you can actually see that what I've done is make a very crude form of the final implement. It is rounded and it's got flaking on both sides but, crucially, it's got a cutting edge that goes all the way round.'

“我要做的就是，選擇一塊夠硬的石錘，這次我選這塊是個(gè)頭有板球大小的石英巖卵石。先挑個(gè)地方錘下去，接著我就開(kāi)始從這地方開(kāi)始鑿了?，F(xiàn)在呢，一旦我鑿下一片碎片，我就換邊在另一邊也鑿下一片，如此反復(fù)。等我兩邊都忙完一遍下來(lái)，你就可以清楚地看見(jiàn)我手中這物品已經(jīng)輪廓清晰，基本成型了。它是滿粗糙的，兩邊也很多缺口，但關(guān)鍵是它兩邊延伸下來(lái)的邊緣都是鋒利。”

Simply watching a practised knapper at work shows just how many skills the maker of our handaxe must have possessed. Handaxes are not things you knock off; they are the result of experience, of careful planning and of skill, learned and refined over a long period.

僅僅觀看一個(gè)熟手石器專家工作，就想而知我們這把石斧的制造者得擁有多高的技藝了。石斧可不是你亂鑿一通就可以整出來(lái)的東西，它們可是經(jīng)驗(yàn)的成果，凝結(jié)著精心設(shè)計(jì)與高超技藝，這些都得通過(guò)一段相當(dāng)長(zhǎng)期的學(xué)習(xí)與提升。

'Now, if I really wanted to refine that - and people did want to refine that, they really were creative people; they wanted to make beautiful objects, not just functional objects - what I could then do is change the hammer from a big stone hammer to a hammer that is much softer ... a piece of antler is a perfect hammer. And what we would do then, is actually thin the piece down and refine the shape, work our way round ... and in about 10 to 15 minutes, there's your handaxe.' (Phil Harding)

“現(xiàn)在，假設(shè)我真想進(jìn)行精加工——其實(shí)早期人類還真想要精加工，他們可堪稱是創(chuàng)意人，想要制造的有美感的物品，不僅僅只是功能性的物品?？傊兀椰F(xiàn)在得做的是，收起這把大石錘，換一更加小巧、硬度低點(diǎn)的錘子，挑塊鹿角當(dāng)錘子就很合適了。接下來(lái)我們就把這里細(xì)細(xì)削薄，沿著邊緣一圈削下來(lái)……這樣加工上大概十到十五分鐘，你的手斧就出來(lái)了。”菲爾·哈丁解釋道。

But as well as great manual dexterity, what's important for our story is the conceptual leap required - to be able to imagine in the rough lump of stone the shape that you want to make, in the way a sculptor today can see the statue inside the block of marble.

然而且不談這工藝如何之精湛，我們故事中的重點(diǎn)是其中所需的概念性飛躍，即能夠從粗糙的石頭疙瘩里面想像出你所想要制造的工具形狀，正如當(dāng)代的雕塑家可以從大理石塊中構(gòu)思出成型的雕像一樣。

This particular piece of supreme hi-tech stone is between 1.2 and 1.4 million years old. Like the chopping tool we were looking at in the last programme, it was found in East Africa, at Olduvai Gorge, that great split in the savannah in Tanzania.

這件特別的精巧高技術(shù)石器大約有120至140萬(wàn)歲了。正如我們上集節(jié)目中介紹的那件石制砍砸器，這石斧也出土于東非的奧杜威峽谷那道坦桑尼亞大草原上的大裂縫。

But this comes from a higher geological layer than the chopping tool, and there's a huge leap between those earliest first stone tools and this handaxe, because I think it's in this tool that we find the real beginnings of modern humans. The person that made this is, I think, a person we would have recognised as someone like us.

但這石斧出土的地質(zhì)層比那砍砸器更晚一些，而且兩者之間存在著最大的質(zhì)的飛躍，因?yàn)槲矣X(jué)得這石斧才正是現(xiàn)代人類的真正開(kāi)端。我想我們會(huì)認(rèn)同制造這件物品的那個(gè)人與我們是同樣的人類。

All this carefully focussed and planned creativity implies an enormous advance in how our ancestors saw the world and how their brains worked. But this handaxe may contain the evidence of something even more remarkable. Does this chipped stone tool hold the secret of speech? Was it in making things like this that we learned how to talk to one another?

諸如此類的井井有條、構(gòu)思完善的創(chuàng)造力，意思味著我們祖先在看待世界與其自身的大腦運(yùn)上都有了長(zhǎng)足的進(jìn)步。然而這塊石斧可能也蘊(yùn)藏著其他更加不可尋常的證據(jù)。這塊打制石器是否隱藏著語(yǔ)言的秘密?我們是否在制作類似這樣工具時(shí)學(xué)會(huì)了彼此用語(yǔ)言交流?

Recently, scientists have looked at what happens inside the brain when a stone tool is being made. They've used modern hospital scanners to see which bits of the brain are used when a knapper is working with stone - and surprisingly the areas of the modern brain activated when you're making a handaxe overlap considerably with those you use when you speak. It now seems very likely that if you can shape a stone you can shape a sentence.

近來(lái)科學(xué)家研究了制造工具的過(guò)程人類大腦中的活動(dòng)情況。他們采用現(xiàn)代醫(yī)學(xué)掃瞄儀來(lái)觀察當(dāng)石匠加工石器時(shí)，大腦的哪部分會(huì)被使用到。令人驚訝的是，當(dāng)時(shí)進(jìn)石器制作時(shí)現(xiàn)代人大腦活動(dòng)區(qū)域與使用語(yǔ)言時(shí)大腦活動(dòng)區(qū)域有相當(dāng)大的一部分是重疊的?，F(xiàn)在看來(lái)極有可能當(dāng)你有能力加工一塊石頭，你就有能力加工一個(gè)句子。

Of course we've no idea what the maker of our handaxe might have said, but it seems probable that he would have had roughly the language abilities of a seven-year-old child. But whatever the level, this early speech would clearly have been the beginnings of a quite new capacity for communication - and that would have meant that people could sit down to exchange ideas, plan their work together or even just to gossip. If you can make a decent handaxe like this one, it's a good bet that you're well on the way to something we would all recognise as society.

當(dāng)然我們無(wú)法知道當(dāng)時(shí)我們那制造石斧的祖先可能說(shuō)出什么，但極有可能他當(dāng)然已經(jīng)擁有約等同于七歲左右小孩子的語(yǔ)言能力。然而無(wú)論他當(dāng)時(shí)水平如何，顯然這種早期的語(yǔ)言是一種全新溝通能力的開(kāi)始;同時(shí)這也意味著同時(shí)的人類已經(jīng)能夠坐下來(lái)交流思想，或共同計(jì)劃下大家的工作，或就只是單純的閑聊拉呱。假如你有能力制造出那么體面的手斧，那么我敢打賭當(dāng)已經(jīng)相當(dāng)具有某些我們現(xiàn)代社會(huì)能夠認(rèn)可的共性。

So, 1.2 million years ago, where are we? We can make tools like our handaxe, that help us control our environment and in fact transform it - the handaxe gives us not just better food, but can also skin animals for clothing and strip branches for fire or shelter.

所以一百二十萬(wàn)年前，我們究竟在哪里?我們能夠制造出像這種手斧一樣的工具，能有效幫我們控制我們的環(huán)境，甚至改變環(huán)境;這手斧不僅可以給我們提供更好的食物，而且能剝獸皮來(lái)當(dāng)衣服，扒樹(shù)皮來(lái)取火或者建造庇護(hù)場(chǎng)所。

Not only this; we can now talk to each other and we can imagine something that isn't already in front of us. What next? The handaxe is about to accompany us on a huge journey; because with all these skills, we're no longer tied to our immediate environment.

不僅如此，我們現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)能夠彼此交流，能夠想象出那些還沒(méi)發(fā)生在我們面前的事物。下一步呢?這手斧將伴隨著我們繼續(xù)我們的偉大征途，因?yàn)閾碛羞@些技能，我們將不再依賴于眼前的直接環(huán)境。

If we need to - even if we just want to - we can move. Travel is possible, maybe even desirable, and we can move beyond the warm savannahs of Africa and survive, perhaps even flourish, in a colder climate.

假如我們有需要，甚至只是我們有意愿，我們可以遷徙?，F(xiàn)在長(zhǎng)途旅行已經(jīng)可能了，也許甚至是更可取的，我們可以超越這溫暖的非洲大草原，在更寒冷的氣候里存活，甚至繁衍生息。

The handaxe is our passport to the rest of the world, and in the study collections of the British Museum you can find handaxes from all over Africa - Nigeria, South Africa, Libya - but also from Israel and India, Spain and Korea - even from a gravel pit near Heathrow airport.

這手斧是我們探索世界其他各角落的通行證。仔細(xì)觀察下大英博物館里的各種藏品，你就能夠找到出土于非洲各地的手斧——尼日利亞的，南非的，利比亞的;同時(shí)你還能找到來(lái)自以色列、印度、西班牙、韓國(guó)等地;甚至在希思羅機(jī)場(chǎng)附近的礫石坑也有手斧的出土呢。

And as they moved north, these early handaxe-makers became the first Britons. Nick Ashton has been excavating on the Norfolk coast in Happisburgh:

隨著他們的北遷，這些早期的手斧制造者們其中有些成為了首批英國(guó)人。尼爾·阿什頓在Happisburgh地區(qū)的諾?？撕０哆M(jìn)行過(guò)挖掘：

'In Happisburgh we have these 30-foot (or 9-metre) cliffs, which are composed of these clays and silts and sands, and these were laid down by massive glaciation around about 450,000 years ago, which even reached the outskirts of north London. But it's beneath these clays that a local who was walking his dog found a handaxe, embedded in these organic sediments.

“在Happisburgh那里有大概三十英尺，即九米高的懸崖，由粘土、粉砂及沙石構(gòu)成;這些地質(zhì)層都大約形成于四十五萬(wàn)年前的大規(guī)模冰川時(shí)期，當(dāng)時(shí)冰川延伸到現(xiàn)倫敦北部的郊區(qū)。某天一個(gè)當(dāng)?shù)厝嗽诹锕窌r(shí)，無(wú)意發(fā)現(xiàn)在一把手斧鑲嵌在這些粘泥層下的有機(jī)沉積物中。

These tools - which were first being made in Africa 1.6 million years ago - arrived in southern Europe and parts of Asia just under a million years ago, and reached Britain somewhere between 600,000 and 500,000 years ago.

這種最早出土于一百六十萬(wàn)年前非洲地區(qū)的工具，在不到一百萬(wàn)年前抵達(dá)了歐洲南部及亞洲部分地區(qū)，并且在約五十至六十萬(wàn)年前抵達(dá)了英國(guó)地區(qū)。

Of course today it's a beach, but the coast all those many years ago would've been several miles further out. And if you'd walked along that ancient coastline, you would have arrived in what nowadays we call The Netherlands, in the heart of central Europe.

當(dāng)然如今這里已經(jīng)成為海灘，然后遠(yuǎn)在很多很多以前，海岸線還要向前延伸出幾英里遠(yuǎn)。假如你沿著這此古老的海岸線走下去，你將會(huì)最終抵達(dá)如今我們稱之為荷蘭的地區(qū)，歐洲中部的心臟地位。

At this time there was a major land bridge connecting Britain to mainland Europe. We don't really know why humans colonised Britain then, but perhaps it was due to the effectiveness of this new technology that we call the handaxe.'

在當(dāng)時(shí)，英國(guó)與歐洲大陸之間有一條主要的大陸橋連接著。我們真不知道人類當(dāng)時(shí)為什么在英國(guó)土地上生息繁衍，然而大概也是因?yàn)槭指@種有效的新興技術(shù)吧。”

The stone handaxe was made essentially in the same way and in the same shape for over a million years, and it must be the most successful piece of human technology in human history. But is there one last secret in the stone? Our handaxe is just a bit too large to use easily.

本質(zhì)上而言，在超過(guò)一百萬(wàn)年的時(shí)光里，石斧都是按同一種工藝制作，保持同一種形狀，所以它真不亞于人類歷史最最成功的技術(shù)成果了。然而這塊石頭中究竟還蘊(yùn)藏著哪一個(gè)終級(jí)秘密呢?我們這塊手斧就是個(gè)頭有點(diǎn)過(guò)大點(diǎn)兒，使用不方便。

Why would you make it like that? I showed it to an expert in ergonomic design, the inventor Sir James Dyson:

但究竟為何要制作成這樣呢?我就些咨詢了一位人體工程學(xué)設(shè)計(jì)上的專家、發(fā)明家詹斯·戴森爵士：

What interests me about this is that it's not really very practical. It's double-sided, it has a sharp edge both sides, and it's symmetrical. It's almost as though it's an object of beauty rather than a practical object. So I wonder actually if it's a decorative thing, or even something like a ceremonial sword to make you look brave, powerful, and maybe to pull women.

“讓我頗感興趣的倒是它并不十分實(shí)用這一點(diǎn)。它有雙面，兩側(cè)邊緣都很鋒利，而且相當(dāng)對(duì)稱。它看上去簡(jiǎn)直就像是一件頗俱美感的物品，而不僅僅具有實(shí)用性。所以我在思考其實(shí)它是否本身是一件裝飾品，甚至像一把象征性很強(qiáng)的劍之類的，能襯托出你的勇氣與力量，或者用來(lái)引吸女士的注意力呢。”

'It doesn't look to me like a practical tool, it looks to me more like a show object, a decorative object, than a practical object, because I can only see that whatever I do with it I'm going to hurt my hand. So I think it's a beautiful object, but I don't believe it has any intent - serious intent - behind it.'

“反正在我看來(lái)它不像是一件實(shí)用工具，倒像是一樣炫耀品、裝飾品，沒(méi)帶多少實(shí)用性;因?yàn)槲夷芸吹綗o(wú)論我怎么使用它，總會(huì)弄傷自己的手。因此，我就認(rèn)為這是一個(gè)美麗精致的物品，不過(guò)我倒不覺(jué)得其身上蘊(yùn)含著任何特殊的含意。”

Of course it 'is' still a practical object, but I think it's nonetheless worth speculating, as Sir James Dyson does, whether our handaxe 'was' made a bit too big for easy use, in order to show that it was made for somebody important. Are we looking here at one of the oldest of all status symbols; the expression of a social pecking order?

當(dāng)然，事實(shí)上它仍舊是一件實(shí)用的物品，但我想它還滿值得認(rèn)真思考的，正如詹姆斯·戴森爵士那樣說(shuō)，是否我們這手斧被“制造”得有點(diǎn)過(guò)大不便使用，只為了能突顯出它所有人的重要性?

And then the handaxe is so pleasing to the eye as well as to the hand, that it's hard not to ask if it wasn't to some extent made quite intentionally to be a thing of beauty. Is this the beginning of the long story of art and, indeed, of art being pressed into the service of power?

我們是否正面對(duì)著人類最古老的地位象征物品之一?代表著一個(gè)社會(huì)的尊卑秩序?然而這手斧是看上去多么的賞心悅目，拿到手上又多么的玲瓏精致，使得我們不由而然地思考是否在某程度上，它是為了呈現(xiàn)美感而制作的。這是否是人類漫長(zhǎng)藝術(shù)史的開(kāi)端呢?

Or are we just projecting back on to these distant ancestors our own ways of thinking about beauty and status?

是否意味著藝術(shù)服務(wù)于權(quán)威的開(kāi)始呢?又或許我們?cè)谝粠樵傅匾晕覀冏约簩?duì)美感與地位的認(rèn)知，來(lái)揣測(cè)我們那些遙遠(yuǎn)時(shí)光的祖先們?

In the next programme we're going to be unquestionably in the realm of art - I'm going to be looking at a masterpiece of Ice Age sculpture, carved in the tusk of a mammoth.

接下來(lái)的節(jié)目里，我們將毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)地邁進(jìn)藝術(shù)的領(lǐng)域。我將要去尋找一件冰河時(shí)期雕刻在猛犸象牙上的不朽杰作。