世界小史 第9章:頭蓋骨

On another occasion, but still in Germany – in the Neander valley – a human skull was found.

在另一個(gè)地方，但仍在德國(guó)，在尼安德?tīng)柹焦?，人們發(fā)現(xiàn)了一塊人的頭蓋骨。

And this was also immensely interesting because nobody alive today has a skull like this one either.

這有意思極了，因?yàn)楝F(xiàn)在活著的人也沒(méi)有這樣的一塊頭蓋骨。

Instead of a forehead like ours it just had two thick ridges above the eyebrows.

沒(méi)有我們這樣的額頭，眉毛上僅有兩個(gè)厚厚的皺摺。

Now, if all our thinking goes on behind our foreheads and these people didn't have any foreheads, then perhaps they didn't think as much as we do.

現(xiàn)在如果我們所有的思考都是在是我們額頭的后部進(jìn)行的，而如果這些人沒(méi)有額頭，那么他們也許就不像我們思考得這么多。

Or at any rate, thinking may have been harder for them.

無(wú)論如何，思考可能對(duì)他們更困難。

So the people who examined the skull concluded that once upon a time there were people who weren't very good at thinking,

所以檢查了這頭蓋骨的人們總結(jié)說(shuō)曾經(jīng)有不善于思考的人，

but who were better at biting than we are today.

但他們卻比現(xiàn)今的我們有更強(qiáng)的咀嚼能力。