BBC 100件藏品中的世界史005:Clovis point 克洛維斯石矛頭

BBC 100件藏品中的世界史

005: EPISODE 5 - Clovis point 克洛維斯石矛頭

Clovis point (made over 13,000 years ago). Stone spearhead found in Arizona

第五集——克洛維斯石矛頭，距今約于一萬三千年前以上，出土于美國亞利桑利州。

Imagine. You're in a green landscape studded with trees and bushes. You're working in a team of hunters quietly stalking a herd of mammoths.

想象一下,你所在之處，一片綠樹蔭蔭、灌木繁茂，收眼盡是舒心的綠。你是一群獵人中的成員，正在采取團(tuán)隊作戰(zhàn)術(shù)悄悄地盯梢著一群猛犸象群。

One of the mammoths, you hope, is going to be your supper. You're clutching a light spear with a sharp, pointed stone at the end of it.

你期望著這其中某頭猛犸象將會成為你今天的晚餐。你握緊手中輕盈的長矛，尖端上石制的矛尖鋒芒畢露。

You get closer - you hurl your spear - and it misses. The mammoth you wanted to kill snaps the shaft under its foot.

你期望著這其中某頭猛犸象將會成為你今天的晚餐。你握緊手中輕盈的長矛，尖端上石制的矛尖鋒芒畢露。

That spear is useless now. You take another one, and you move on. And you leave behind you on the ground something that's not just a killing tool that failed, but a thing that's going to become a message across time, because thousands of years after the mammoth trod on your spear, humans will find that pointed stone spearhead and know that their ancestors were in this place far earlier than anyone had imagined.

現(xiàn)在那把長矛成了廢物了。你拿起另一把長矛，繼續(xù)你的旅程。然而那被你剛剛遺棄到地上的物品，可不止止是一件失敗的殺器，它將成為一個跨越時光的使者;因為在那猛犸象踩碎了你的長矛之后的幾千年后，后來人將會發(fā)現(xiàn)這件尖尖的石矛頭，從而知道原來很久很久以前，超出他們想象的早，他們遙遠(yuǎn)的祖先曾經(jīng)在這里留下了足跡。

'It looks so tiny and then it's only sort of two or three inches in length.' (Michael Palin)

“它看起來是真小啊，才差不多兩三寸英寸長。”邁克爾·佩林說道。”

 

 

'These are people on the move - explorers, and I can really feel quite a bit of empathy, and I can really feel what it must've been like to enter a country that nobody had told you about, that nobody had actually been in before you.' (Professor Gary Haynes)

“這些人類永遠(yuǎn)在旅行中，是探險者。我還真有點跟他們產(chǎn)生共鳴了;當(dāng)你走進(jìn)一個你一無所知的國家，沒有告訴你這是一片前人從來踏足過的土地時，那種感覺，我可以真切地感受到。”加里·海恩斯教授說道。

It's 13,000 years ago, and you're in America. Things that are thrown away or lost can tell us as much about the past as any objects carefully preserved for posterity.

現(xiàn)在從概是一萬三千年前，你所在的地方是美洲。其實被丟棄或遺失的東西，也如同那些被視如珍寶一樣精心保存的物品，能向我們訴說那過去的故事。

Broken things tell poignant stories - in fact, mundane everyday items discarded long ago as rubbish, are as much a defining characteristic of being human as great art, and these modest but essential things can tell us some of the most important stories of all in human history.

殘破的物品訴說著凄美的往事。事實上，當(dāng)年那些當(dāng)成日常垃圾拋棄掉的物品，在多年后的今天極可能與那些不朽藝術(shù)品同樣擁有定義我們作為人類本質(zhì)特性的力量，并且往往是這些不太體面卻十分純粹的東西，向我們進(jìn)述了人類歷史上那些最重要的故事。

In the case of this programme, how modern humans - the toolmakers and the artists we've been following this week - took over the world. How, after populating Africa, Asia, Australia and Europe, they finally got to America.

在這期節(jié)目中，這故事是關(guān)于現(xiàn)代人類，像我們前兩期已經(jīng)介紹過的那些工匠與藝術(shù)家們，是如何改造這個世界;又是如何繼非洲、亞洲、歐洲之后，最后到達(dá)了美洲大陸。

In the North American gallery of the British Museum, among the magnificent feather headdresses, and in a case beside the totem poles, is a very interesting bit of rubbish indeed. It is the business end of a deadly weapon; a spear - the shaft, of course, is long gone.

在大英博物館的北美洲展館部分，眾多五彩繽紛的羽毛頭飾與華麗壯觀的圖騰柱中間，一顆不起眼卻很有趣的小“垃圾”靜靜地躺在一個小展臺上。它便是一件致命武器的最尖端。這根長矛的矛桿當(dāng)然早就腐朽在漫漫歲月中了。

It's made of stone and it was lost by a person like you or me in Arizona over 13,000 years ago.

一萬三千年前，這石制矛頭被某個像你我一樣的人類遺棄在亞利桑那州。

The spearhead is made of hard flint and it's about the size of a small, slim mobile phone, but it's in the shape of a long thin leaf. The point is still intact and still very sharp. The surface of both sides has beautiful ripples and, when you look closely, you can see that these are the scars from its making, where the flakes of the flint have been carefully chipped off.

這矛頭是由一顆堅硬的燧石制成的，大概一部超薄手機(jī)大小，細(xì)細(xì)長長的葉子狀。它的矛鋒完好無損，仍然相當(dāng)?shù)募怃J。表面的兩側(cè)有美麗的漣漪痕跡。細(xì)細(xì)觀察下來，就可以看出那是打磨過程中留下來的。當(dāng)年工匠精工細(xì)磨，慢慢地在這燧石片上敲下片片碎石，就留下了道道的痕跡。

 

 

It's a lovely thing to touch and it's very well adapted to its lethal purpose - a thing of beauty and a kill forever!

它把弄起來玲瓏可愛，但卻十足勝任了它生來賦于的致命使命——永恒的美麗、永恒的兇器!

This spearhead raises many questions. But perhaps the most surprising fact is that it was found in America. After all, for most of our history we humans have been a resolutely land-locked African, Asian and European species. So how did the people who made spears like this get to America, and who were they?

這矛頭引出了許多問題。但也許其中最讓人吃驚的一點是它出土于美洲。畢竟在我們歷史的絕大部分時期，人類這物種總是生存繁衍在非洲、亞洲及歐洲等內(nèi)陸地區(qū)。當(dāng)然，當(dāng)初這些制造類似這種長矛的人類，是如此到達(dá)美洲的?他們又是誰呢?

This stone spearhead is by no means unique; it is just one of thousands that have been found across North America, from Alaska to Mexico. They're known as Clovis points, after the small town in the US State of New Mexico where they were first discovered in 1936, alongside the bones of the animals they'd killed. And so the makers of these stone points, the people who hunted with them, are known as Clovis people.

這石矛頭決不是獨(dú)一無二的，僅僅是幾千件之一;出土的大量石矛頭遍布了從阿拉斯加到墨西哥的北美各地。它們被稱為克洛維斯尖矛頭，根據(jù)它們首次出土地的那個美國新墨西哥州小鎮(zhèn)命名;當(dāng)時隨之出土的還有被這些矛頭殺害的動物骨頭殘骸。因此，這些石制矛頭工匠們及其他們的同伴，那些一起狩獵的人類，被稱之為克洛維斯人。

The discovery at Clovis was one of the most dramatic leaps forward in our understanding of the history of the Americas. These spearheads are the firmest evidence yet found for the first human beings to inhabit America.

克洛維斯大發(fā)現(xiàn)在對我們美洲歷史的認(rèn)知上，可謂是一個最戲劇性的飛躍。這些矛頭是有史以來證明美洲首批人類定居蹤跡的最有力證物。

Almost identical Clovis points have been found in clusters from Alaska to Mexico, and from California to Florida, and what they show is that these people were able to establish small communities right across this immense area as the last Ice Age was coming to an end, about 13,000 years ago.

從阿拉斯加到墨西哥，從加利福尼亞到佛羅里達(dá)州，成批成批的克洛維斯矛頭相繼出土，幾近相同。它們向我們說明了，大概在最后一次冰河時期即將結(jié)束的一萬三千年前左右，這些人類已經(jīng)能夠在北美這廣寬無垠的土地上建立起一處處小聚居的部落。

Are the Clovis people really the first Americans? The leading expert in this period is Professor Gary Haynes:

這些克洛維斯人是否是真正的北美人呢?這時期的領(lǐng)頭學(xué)者加里·海恩斯教授說道：

'There's some scattered evidence that people were in North America maybe before these Clovis points were made (which would be before 13,000 years ago), but most of that evidence is arguable.

“有些零散的證據(jù)表明，也許是在克洛維斯矛頭被制造出來前，即在一萬三千年前，已經(jīng)有遠(yuǎn)古人類的北美洲定居;但是絕大部分證據(jù)還是值得商榷的。

The fact is that Clovis look like the first people. If you dig an archaeological site almost anywhere, the bottom levels are going to be about 13,000 years old, and if there are any artefacts, it will be Clovis or Clovis-related.

隨便在北美洲一處地方挖掘出一處考古遺址，最底層的地質(zhì)層總是約在一萬三千年前;如果有任何文物出土的話，肯定是克洛維斯或者與克洛維斯相關(guān)的。

So it looks like maybe these are the very first dispersers who filled up the continent and became the ancestors of modern Native Americans. The area that was populated by Clovis was just about all of North America, and they came from somewhere up north, because the studies of genetics seem to prove conclusively that the ancestry of Native Americans is north-east Asian.'

因此看上去這些人類似乎就是最早期的傳播者、開拓者，在這片大陸上開枝散葉、繁衍生息，成為現(xiàn)代印第安人的祖先。這些克洛維斯人幾乎遍布了北美各地，而且他們來自于更加北部的某個地方;因為遺傳學(xué)研究給出了相當(dāng)定性的證據(jù)，說明土著美洲人的祖先就是東北亞人種。”

So archaeology, DNA, and the bulk of academic opinion, are telling us effectively that everybody in America arrived from north-east Asia less than 15,000 years ago. When history gets re-written like this, it can lead to head-on collision with deeply-held beliefs.

因此，考古學(xué)、DNA及大量的學(xué)術(shù)見解都極明確地告訴大家，最早不過一萬五千年前，人類從東北亞抵達(dá)了北美洲。當(dāng)歷史即將被重新編寫時，它就不可避免地要與根深蒂古的信息迎頭相撞。

Historian Gabrielle Tayac is a Piscataway Indian. She works for the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, and she studies how Native Americans are reacting to this new narrative that science is giving them:

歷史學(xué)家加布里埃爾·塔亞克是一位皮斯卡塔韋印第安人，在史密森安那的美國印第安人國家博物館工作;她專門研究了土著美洲人對于此項科學(xué)新發(fā)現(xiàn)的說法反應(yīng)是如何的：

'This is an affront to their very specific beliefs ... If you look at creation stories, there are certainly people who have very strong beliefs that either they emerged from the earth, or fell from the sky or developed out of the back of a water beetle, depending on where they were ... Native American religions were repressed for a very long time and so people have become very protective.

“這對于他們相當(dāng)特定的信仰而言肯定是一種冒犯……假如你立刻一下他們的創(chuàng)世故事，部分人們有很強(qiáng)的信念，取決于他們來自哪里，他們要么覺得他們要么是從地心出現(xiàn)的，要么是從天空掉下來的，要么就是從一種水甲蟲的背部進(jìn)化而來的……美洲土著的信仰曾經(jīng)長年被壓抑過，所以現(xiàn)在人們變得防備性相當(dāng)強(qiáng)。

For some Native people, though not all, the insertion of scientific findings that Native people did not get created from the very site that they emerged from, or that there are findings that might be counter to a specific oral recitation, can be seen as a way of invalidating Native traditions.'

對于某些，盡管不是全部的土著人，這種科學(xué)發(fā)現(xiàn)的介入，硬生生地說明土著居民根本就是不是從當(dāng)?shù)剡M(jìn)化而來的，或者有些科學(xué)發(fā)現(xiàn)可能對某種口口相傳的民族傳說相碰撞，這會被他們看成是一種挑戰(zhàn)土著傳統(tǒng)權(quán)威的方式。”

By about 40,000 years ago, humans like ourselves had spread from Africa all over Asia and Europe, even crossing seas to get to Australia. But no humans had yet set foot in the Americas, and it needed major changes in climate before they could. Firstly, 20,000 years ago, the Ice Age locked up the water in ice-sheets and glaciers, leading to a huge fall in sea level, and the sea between Russia and Alaska (what's now the Bering Straits) became a wide and easily passable land-bridge.

大約到了四萬年前，像我你現(xiàn)代人的人類已經(jīng)走出非洲，遍布了亞洲與歐洲，甚至穿越海洋抵達(dá)了澳大利亞。然后仍舊沒有任何人類踏足到美洲的土地上，事實上只有到氣候產(chǎn)生了重要變化之后，這種時機(jī)才能成熟。首先，大約到了兩萬前年，冰河世紀(jì)冰封了冰層與冰川的大量水份，導(dǎo)致海平面的大幅度下降;于是俄羅斯與阿拉斯加之間的海域，也就是如令的白令海峽，出現(xiàn)了一道巨大而容易通行的大陸橋。

Animals - mammals, bison and reindeer - moved across to the American side, and hunting humans followed. The way further south into the rest of America was through an ice-free corridor between the Rocky Mountains on the Pacific side, and the vast continental ice-sheet covering Canada on the other.

各種各樣的動物，包括哺乳動物、野牛、馴鹿等開始向美洲方向進(jìn)行遷徙，狩獵它們的人類也隨之而來。當(dāng)年一道巨大的無冰走廊，一頭向著通過太平洋一側(cè)的洛基山脈一路向南延伸至美國各地，另一頭深深延伸至被大陸冰層覆蓋著的加拿大廣袤土地。

15,000 years ago, as the climate warmed up again, it was possible for large numbers of animals, followed again by their human hunters, to get through this corridor to the rich hunting grounds across what is now the United States. This is the new American world of the Clovis points.

一萬五千年前，隨著氣候的再次回暖，極可能在此時數(shù)量巨大的動物及跟隨著它們的人類獵人，通過這條走廊到達(dá)了如今的美國土地上這資源豐富的獵場。這就是克洛維斯矛頭出現(xiàn)的美洲新世界。

It was clearly a great environment for those go-getting humans from north Asia but, if you were a mammoth, the outlook wasn't quite so rosy. The ripples on the side of the Clovis point, which I find so beautiful, produce intense bleeding in any animal they hit, so you don't need to be a dead shot and strike a vital organ, you can hit your prey anywhere and the blood loss will gradually weaken it until you can easily finish it off. And by 10,000 BC, all the mammoths and a lot of other big mammals, had been finished off.

顯而易見，對于這些來自北亞的掠奪性人類而言，他們尋找到了一片樂土;但假如你不走運(yùn)的身為一頭猛犸象，那你的處境可就堪憂了?？寺寰S斯矛頭邊緣上那些我看起來如此美麗的漣漪磨痕，可以對受到攻擊的任何動物造成嚴(yán)重出血。因此你根本不需要是一名神槍手，一出手便是命中致命要害;你可以往獵物身上任何部位亂砸一通，一旦被打中，獵物就會因為失血過多而慢慢虛弱下來，然后你輕輕松松就可以一下兩下解決掉它了。大約在公元前一萬年前，差不多所有猛犸象與其他大型哺乳動物就被這樣解決掉了。

How far it's the Clovis people that are responsible for these extinctions is a matter for debate, but Gary Haynes thinks they were:

究竟克活維斯人對于這些物種的滅絕要負(fù)多大責(zé)任，是一個長年備受爭論的話題，不過加里·海恩斯認(rèn)為他們肯定要負(fù)責(zé)任：

'I think there's a direct connection between the first appearance of people and the last appearance of many of the large mammals - if not all of them - that disappeared in North America. You can actually trace this sort of connection across the world, wherever modern 'homo sapiens' turns up. There had never been a human population before this. It's almost invariable that large mammals disappeared - and not just some animals, it's a large proportion. In North America it's something like two-thirds to three-quarters.'

“我覺得人類的最初亮相與許多，即使不是全部的大型哺乳動物的最后消失在美洲之間有著相當(dāng)直接的聯(lián)系。事實上，你可以輕易地在全世界任何現(xiàn)代“智人”所到之處尋找到這種聯(lián)系的蹤影。假如某地區(qū)在此之前從來沒有人類群體踏足過，一旦人類來了，大型哺乳動物的滅亡幾乎是不可避免的;而且不僅僅是部分動物，而是相當(dāng)大比重的動物。在北美，因此消亡的物種高達(dá)三分之二至四分之三。”

This was going to become a familiar story. By around 12,000 years ago, the Clovis people and their descendants had not only spread across North America, but had also reached the southernmost tip of South America. Not long after this, warming climate and melting ice raised sea levels sharply so that the land-bridge to Asia flooded once again. There was no way back.

接下來的故事你我似曾相識。大約在一萬兩千年前，克洛維斯人與他們的后裔，不僅僅已經(jīng)遍布北美，同時到達(dá)了南美洲的最南端。沒過多久，全球氣候變暖，冰川融化，海平面大幅度回升，再次淹沒了通往亞洲的大陸架。沒有退路了。

For the next nine thousand years, in fact until European contact in the sixteenth century AD, the civilisations of the Americas would develop on their own. So, 12,000 years ago, we had reached a key moment in human history. With the exception of the islands of the Pacific, human beings had settled the whole habitable world.

于是在接下來的九千多年，直到公元十六世紀(jì)左右歐洲探險者重新發(fā)現(xiàn)了美洲，在此之間的悠悠歲月里，美洲文明將獨(dú)立發(fā)展，自成一體。因此，一萬兩千年前，我們到達(dá)了人類歷史上的關(guān)鍵時刻。隨了太平洋島嶼以后，人類差不多生息繁衍在了世界任何可居住的角落。

We seem to be hard-wired to keep moving, to want more, to find out what's beyond the next hill. Broadcaster and traveller Michael Palin has covered a good deal of the globe - what does he think drives us on?

我們似乎與生俱來有一種永遠(yuǎn)向前的天性，想要得到更多，發(fā)現(xiàn)更多，去跨越下一座山峰。廣播員與旅行家邁克爾·佩林差不多走遍全世界了，那他又是什么力量驅(qū)動這種人性執(zhí)著呢?

'In myself I've always been very restless and, from when I was very small, interested in where I wasn't, [in] what was over the horizon, [in] what was round the next corner. And the more you look at the history of 'homo sapiens', it's all about movement, right from the very first time they decided to leave Africa.

“對于我自己而言，我一向就很不安分了，就是呆不住。很小很小的時期，我對所有我沒去過的地方都感興趣，想去看看地平線之外有什么，下個轉(zhuǎn)彎處之后又有什么。而且當(dāng)你看了越多的“智人”歷史，你就越感覺從他們決定離開非洲的那一刻起，那便是一部旅行探索的歷史。

It is this restlessness which seems a very significant factor in the way the planet was settled by humans. It does seem that we are not settled, we think we are, but we are still looking for somewhere else where something is better - where it's warmer, it's more pleasant.

現(xiàn)在看來似乎這種躁動不安的天性恰恰是一種非常重要的因素，決定了人類在這地球上的定居方式。其實并不是說我們沒能安居下來，我們覺得我們安頓好了，然而我們還是自然而然地想往別外尋找更好的地方，更溫暖，更恰人的地方?？赡苓@是一種元素，精神元素。

Maybe there is an element, a spiritual element, of hope in this whole thing. You know, that you are going to find somewhere that is going to be wonderful. It's the search for paradise, the search for the perfect land - maybe that's at the bottom of it all, all the time.'

你知道你就是得去尋找這片樂土。這是在尋找天堂，在尋找極樂世界。也許這追求在是整個人類歷史上很本質(zhì)的，一直就是。

Hope, as the defining human quality - wouldn't that be an encouraging note in which to end this first week of our history of the world?

希望是一種定義人性的要素，拿它來結(jié)束我們《百件物品中的世界歷史》這系列第一周五集節(jié)目豈不鼓舞人心?

What's stood out for me in this week's long journey of nearly two million years, is the constant human striving to do things better; to make tools that are not only more efficient but also more beautiful, to explore not just environments but ideas, to struggle towards something not yet experienced. The objects I've looked at this week have tracked that move - from tools for survival not so different from what other animals might use, to a great work of art and the beginnings of religion.

本周我們經(jīng)歷了將近兩百萬年的漫長旅程，感受最深的一點是人類總是不斷努力著把事情做得更好，把工具制造得不僅僅更高效，而且更漂亮;探索的不僅僅是周圍的環(huán)境，而且是思想;向未知事物奮斗著。本周我介紹的各件物品，從一件可能動物也能使用、效用不高的生存工具開始，以一件意味著宗教起點的偉大藝術(shù)作品結(jié)尾。

Next week, I'm going to be looking at how, about ten thousand years ago, we began to transform the natural world by starting to farm. In the process, changing not just the landscape, but plants, animals and, above all, ourselves. And I'm going to be focussing on two favourite pastimes - food and sex.

下一周，我將繼續(xù)去探索近萬年前，我們是如何去將自然世界改造成農(nóng)場。在此過程中，改變的不僅僅是地貌景觀，還有植被、動物，還有最重要的我們自身。而且我將聚集于人類最喜愛的兩種消遣方式——食欲與性欲的滿足。