ZeresenayAlemseged_2007G[Zeresenay Alemseged][找寻人类的起源].pdf

www.XiYuS锡育软件I have 18 minutes to tell you what happened over the past sixmillion years.在接下来的18分钟里，我要向你们讲述 过去六百万年内发生的事情。00:11All right.开始吧。00:16We all have come from a long way,here in Africa,andconverged in this region of Africa,which is a place where 90percent of our evolutionary process took place.我们都经历了漫长的历程，在非洲这里，在非洲这一地区相聚，这里是我们90%的进化过程的发生之地。00:18And I say that not because I am African,but its in Africa thatyou find the earliest evidence for human ancestors,upright-walking traces,even the first technologies in form of stonetools.我这么说的原因不是因为我是个非洲人，而是因为在非洲，你可以找到 关于人类祖先的最早证据、直立行走的痕迹、甚至是最早的科技石器。00:30So we all are Africans,and welcome home.所以我们都是非洲人。欢迎你们回家。00:44All right.好的。00:47Im a paleoanthropologist,and my job is to define mansplace in nature and explore what makes us human,and todayI will use Selam,the earliest child ever discovered,to tell youa story of all of us.我是一名古人类学家，我的职责是去定义 人类在大自然中的地位，并且探究人类的本质，今天我就要通过塞拉姆(Selam)至今发现的最远古的小孩 来讲述一个关于我们所有人的故事。00:49Selam is our most complete skeleton of a three-year-old girlwho lived and died 3.3 million years ago.塞拉姆是我们所拥有的最完整的三岁小女孩的骨骼，她生活在330万年前。01:02She belongs to the species known as Australopithecusafarensis.她属于南方古猿阿法种，01:10converged:adj.收敛的;聚合的/v.聚集,使会聚(converge的过去式)evolutionary:adj.进化的;发展的;渐进的 skeleton:n.骨架,骨骼;纲要;骨瘦如柴的人/adj.骨骼的;骨瘦如柴的;概略的You dont need to remember that.你不需要记住这个。01:14Thats the Lucy species,and was found by my research teamin December of 2000 in an area called Dikika.那也是露西的种族，是由我的研究小组 在2000年的12月份在一个叫做Dikika的地方发现的。01:16Its in the northeastern part of Ethiopia.是在埃塞俄比亚的东北部。01:23And Selam means peace in many Ethiopian languages.塞拉姆在很多埃塞俄比亚语言中都代表着“和平”。01:25We use that name to celebrate peace in the region and in theplanet.我们选用了这个名字来庆祝这一区域和这个星球上的和平。01:28And the fact that it was the cover story of all these famousmagazines gives you already an idea of her significance,Ithink.这些著名杂志都用其作为头版头条，这一点就可以告诉你其重要性了。01:34After I was invited by TED,I did some digging,because thatswhat we do,to know about my host.在受到TED的邀请之后，我决定做一点“钻研”（一词双意：digging既指“研究”，又指“挖掘”。）来进一步了解TED，毕竟我是干这一行的。01:41You dont just jump into an invitation.不能茫然地接受邀请。01:47And I learned that the first technology appeared in the formof stone tools 2.6 million years ago.通过我的研究，我发现最早的“科技”(T=Technology)是260万年前的石器，01:49First entertainment comes evidence from flutes that are35,000 years old.最早的“娱乐”(E=Entertainment)来自35000年前的笛子，01:54And evidence for first design comes 75,000 years old-beads.而最早的“设计”(D=Design)则有75000年的历史是珠子。01:59northeastern:adj.在东北的;东北方的;来自东北的 cover story:n.封面故事;与封面图片有关的正文 flutes:n.长笛(flute复数)/v.压制褶子于;用长笛吹奏(flute的第三人称单数)beads:玻璃粉And you can do the same with your genes and track themback in time.你也可以用同样的办法追溯你的基因的历史。02:05And then the analysis of living humans and chimpanzeesteaches us today that we diverged sometime around sevenmillion years ago and that these two species share over 98percent of the same genetic material.而对现存的人类和猩猩的研究 告诉我们大概在7百万年前，人类和猩猩分道扬镳，至今这两个物种仍然有98%的共同基因。02:10TED演讲者：Zeresenay Alemseged|Zeresenay Alemseged演讲标题：Finding the origins of humanity|找寻人类的起源内容概要：Zeresenay Zeray Alemseged digs in the Ethiopian desert,looking for the earliestsigns of humanity.His most exciting find:the 3.3-million-year-old bones of Selam,a 3-year-oldhominid child,from the species Australopithecus afarensis.古人类学家Zeresenay Alemseged 在埃塞俄比亚的不毛之地寻找人类的起源。他将讲述关于寻找最古老的人形小孩的骨骸以及非洲如何保存我们人类线索的故事。I think knowing this is a very useful context within which wecan think of our ancestry.我认为，了解这些为我们对祖先的研究 提供了非常有用的背景资料。02:24However,then the analysis informs us only about thebeginning and the end,telling us nothing about whathappened in the middle.不过，这些研究只告诉了我们开始和结局，却没有告诉 其中都经历了什么。02:30So for us paleoanthropologists,our job is to find the hardevidence,the fossil evidence,to fill in this gap and see thedifferent stages of development.而对于我们古人类学家而言，我们的工作就是找到确凿的证据，化石证据，来填补其中的空白，呈现发展过程中的各个阶段。02:40Because its only when you do that that you can talk about.只有做到这一点之后，你才可以讨论.02:51(Laughter)Its only when you do that that you can talkabout how we looked like and how we behaved at differenttimes,and how those likes and looks and behaviors changedthrough time,that then gives you an access to explore thebiological mechanisms（笑声）只有做到这一点之后，你才可以讨论 在不同时期我们的相貌和我们的行为，以及这些喜好、相貌和行为如何随着时间的流逝而变化，那时这就可以给我们一个 探索这样的生命机制，02:54chimpanzees:n.脊椎黑猩猩(chimpanzee的复数)diverged:vi.分歧;偏离;分叉;离题/vt.使偏离;使分叉 ancestry:n.祖先;血统 fill in:填写;填充;替代 stages:n.计阶段(stage的复数);舞台;戏剧表演/v.计划;表演;分阶段进行(stage的三单形式)and forces that are responsible for this gradual change thatmade us what we are today.正是这些机制和力量逐渐 把我们变成今天这个样子。03:15But finding the hard evidence is a very complicatedendeavor.但是找到确凿的证据是一件非常复杂的任务。03:21Its a systematic and scientific approach,which takes you toplaces that are remote,hot,hostile and often with no access.这是一个系统和科学方法，来带你去很遥远、炎热、危险并常常无法进入的地方。?03:25Just to give you an example,when I went to Dikika,whereSelam was found,in 99,and its about 500 kilometers fromAddis Ababa,the capital of Ethiopia.比如，当我们去Dikika，也就是塞勒姆99年被发现的地方，那里离Addis Ababa 埃塞俄比亚的首都约有500公里。03:34It took us only seven hours to do the first 470 kilometers ofthe 500,but took four solid hours to do the last only 30kilometers.500公里的前470公里只花了我们7小时的时间，但其后的30个小时足足花了我们整整4个小时。03:44With the help of the locals and using just shovels and picks,Imade my way.在当地人的帮助之下，使用锹和镐，我开辟了了一条路。03:56I was the first person to actually drive a car to the spot.我算是开车到这个地方的第一个人。04:00When you get there,this is what you see,and its the vastnessof the place which makes you feel helpless and vulnerable.当你到那儿的时候，这就是你所看到的，这片区域的广袤让你感到自身的无助和脆弱。04:04And once you make it there,the big question is where tostart.一旦你到了那里，最大的问题就是从哪里开始。04:12endeavor:n.努力;尽力(等于endeavour)/vi.努力;尽力(等于endeavour)/vt.努力;尽力(等于endeavour)systematic:adj.系统的;体系的;有系统的;图情分类的;一贯的,惯常的 shovels:n.铁铲;一铲的量;铲车/vt.铲除;用铲挖;把胡乱塞入/vi.铲vulnerable:adj.易受攻击的，易受的攻击；易受伤害的；有弱点的(Laughter)And you find nothing for years and years.（笑声）然后你年复一年，什么也找不到。04:16When I go to places like this,which are paleontological sites,its like going to a game park,an extinct game park.当我去这样的古人类学研究现场时，就像是去一家游乐园，一家灭绝的游乐园。04:21But what you find are not the human remains,such as Selamand Lucy,on a day-to-day basis.但是你找到的并不是在通常意义上存在的人类，就像是塞勒姆和露西。04:29You find elephants,rhinos,monkeys,pigs,et cetera.你找到的是大象，犀牛，猴子，野猪等等。04:35But you could ask,how could these large mammals live inthis desert environment?但你可能会问，这样大型的动物 如何能够生存在这样的沙漠环境中？04:39Of course they cannot,but Im telling you already that theenvironment and the carrying capacity of this region wasdrastically different from what we have today.他们当然不能，但我已经告诉你的是 这个环境及这个地区的承载能力已经与我们今天 的情况产生了急剧的变化。04:43A very important environmental lesson could be learnedfrom this.我们可以从这里学到一堂非常重要的生态课程。04:53Anyway,once we made it there,then its a game park,as Isaid-an extinct game park.不管怎样，当我们到了那里，它就是个游乐场，就像我说的那样，一个灭绝的游乐场。04:57And our ancestors lived in that game park,but were just theminorities.They were not as successful and as widespread asthe Homo sapiens that we are.而且我们的祖先也生活在那个游乐场，但我们只是少数派。他们（人类祖先）并不像智人那样 成功生存而且广泛分布。05:03day-to-day:adj.日常的;逐日的 rhinos:n.(非正式)犀牛;俚钱;现金 cetera:adv.其余,其他 mammals:n.古生哺乳类;哺乳类动物(mammal的复数);哺乳纲 minorities:n.少数(minority的复数形式);少数民族;少数族裔 Homo:n.人,人类;同性恋者sapiens:adj.(拉)现代人的To tell you just an example,an anecdote about their rarity,Iwas going to this place every year and would do field work再给你们举一个例子，一些关于他们稀缺性的奇闻轶事，我每年都要去这个地方，去做实地调查，当然，我的助手帮助我去做这些调查。05:13was going to this place every year and would do field workhere,and the assistants,of course,helped me do thesurveys.当然，我的助手帮助我去做这些调查。05:13They would find a bone and tell me,Here is what yourelooking for.他们会找到一块骨头然后告诉我，“这就是你要找的。”05:24I would say,No,thats an elephant.我会说，“不，这是一块大象的骨头。”05:26Again,another one-Thats a monkey,Thats a pig,etcetera.再一次，另外一块“这是一只猴子的骨头，”“那是一只野猪的骨头，”等等。05:27So one of my assistants,who never went to school,said tome,Listen,Zeray.因此，我的一位从未上过学的助手，对我说，“听着，Zeray。05:30www.XiYuS锡育软件You either dont know what youre looking for,or yourelooking in the wrong place,he said.你或者不知道你要找什么，也不知道你是不是找对地方了，”他说。05:33(Laughter)And I said,Why?Because there were elephantsand lions,and the people were scared and went somewhereelse.（笑声）然后我说，“为什么？”因为这里有大象和狮子，所以人类会恐惧，就搬到其他地方去了。05:38Lets go somewhere else.我们去别的地方吧。”05:44Well,he was very tired,and its really tiring.好吧，他非常疲惫，而且这件事真的很让人倦怠。05:46It was then after such hard work and many frustrating yearsthat we found Selam,and you see the face here covered bysandstone.找到了塞勒姆，经过如此艰苦的工作和令人沮丧的岁月后 你可以看到这里被砂岩覆盖的面孔。05:48anecdote:n.轶事;奇闻;秘史 rarity:n.罕见;珍贵;珍品(需用复数);稀薄 assistants:n.管理助理,助教,店员;辅佐人(assistant的复数形式)surveys:n.调查(survey的复数)in the wrong:有错误;应付责任 tiring:adj.累人的;麻烦的;无聊的;引起疲劳的/v.厌倦;使劳累(tire的ing形式);感到疲倦 frustrating:adj.令人沮丧的/v.使沮丧(frustrate的ing形式)sandstone:n.岩砂岩;沙岩And here is actually the spinal column and the whole torsoencased in a sandstone block,because she was buried by ariver.这里实际上是嵌在一块砂岩中的 脊柱和整个躯体，因为她被一条河流所埋葬。05:56What you have here seems to be nothing,but contains anincredible amount of scientific information that helps usexplore what makes us human.你现在所拥有的貌似什么都不是，但包含了大量不可思议的科学讯息，能够帮助我们了解是什么让我们成为人类。06:05This is the earliest and most complete juvenile humanancestor ever found in the history of paleoanthropology-anamazing piece of our long,long history.这是古人类学历史上找到的最早和 最年少的人类祖先 这段历史是我们长久历史中最叹为观止的片段。06:14There were these three people and me,and I am taking thepictures,thats why I am not in.这是我和其他三个人，我正在拍照，所以我不在镜头中。06:24How would you feel if you were me,you have somethingextraordinary in your hand,but you are in the middle ofnowhere?如果你是我，你的手中捧着意义非凡的东西，但你却不是中心或焦点，你会怎么想？06:29The feeling I had was a deep and quiet happiness andexcitement,of course accompanied by a huge sense ofresponsibility,of making sure everything is safe.我的感觉就是，非常深切的快乐和激动，当然随之而来的是巨大的责任感，那种要确保所有事都安全（的责任感）。06:34Here is a close-up of the fossil after five years of cleaning,preparation,and description-which was very long,and Ihad to expose the bones from the sandstone block这是一块化石的特写，它经过了5年的清理、准备和修饰那时间非常长，而且我需要把骨头从砂岩块中取出来06:45spinal:adj.脊髓的;脊柱的;针的;脊骨的;尖刺的/n.脊椎麻醉 torso:n.躯干;裸体躯干雕像;未完成的作品;残缺不全的东西encased:adj.包装的;被包住的/v.盖住;包起;装箱(encase的过去分词)juvenile:adj.青少年的;幼稚的/n.青少年;少年读物close-up:n.电影特写镜头,特写;小传I just showed you in the previous slide.那块砂岩我在前一张片子里给大家演示了。06:57It took five years.这花费了5年。06:59In a way,this was like the second birth for the child after 3.3million years,but the labor was very long.在某种程度下，这就像是这个孩子在330万年之后的第二次重生，但是劳动的时间很长。07:00And here is full scale-its a tiny bone.这里是一个完整的这是一块小骨头。07:08And in the middle is the minister of Ethiopian tourism,whocame to visit the National Museum of Ethiopia while I wasworking there.中间这个是埃塞俄比亚的旅游部长，当我在埃塞俄比亚的国家博物馆工作的时候，他造访了那里。07:12And you see me worried and trying to protect my child,because you dont leave anyone with this kind of child,evena minister.你可以看到我很担心，试图保护我的孩子，因为你不会把那样的孩子留给任何人，即使是一个部长。07:19So then once youve done that,the next stage is to knowwhat it is.所以，一旦你那样做了，下一步就是弄明白那样的行为是什么意思。07:28(Laughter)Once that was done,then it was possible to（笑声）一旦工作完成了，就有进行比较的可能性了。07:32(Laughter)Once that was done,then it was possible tocompare.性了。07:32We were able to tell that she belonged to the human familytree because the legs,the foot,and some features clearlyshowed that she walked upright,and upright-walking is ahallmark in humanity.我们能够告诉大家的是她属于 人类的大家庭，因为她的腿、脚、和其他一些特征很明显的显示了她直立行走，而直立行走是人类的专属标志。07:39But in addition,if you compare the skull with a comparablyaged chimpanzee and little George Bush here,you see thatyou have vertical forehead,and you see that in humans,because of the development of the pre-frontal cortex,itscalled-you dont see that in chimpanzees,and you dontsee this very projecting canine.不过另外，如果你你把这个头骨与 一个对等年龄的黑猩猩以及这里的小布什（美国第54届总统）相比，你们可以看到有垂直的额头，这是在人类中，由于所谓的 大脑前叶的发展所造成的 而你在黑猩猩的身上看不到这一点，而且你也看不到这样突出的犬齿。07:52In a way:在某种程度上;有点儿;十分激动 hallmark:n.特点;品质证明/vt.给盖上品质证明印记;使具有标志 comparably:adv.同等地;可比较地 chimpanzee:n.脊椎黑猩猩 cortex:n.解剖皮质;树皮;果皮 projecting:adj.突出的;伸出的/v.使突出(project的现在分词);计划;发射 canine:adj.犬的;犬齿的;犬科的;似犬的/n.犬;解剖犬齿So she belongs to our family tree,but within that,of course,you do detailed analysis and we know now that she belongsto the Lucy species,known as Australopithecus afarensis.所以她属于我们这一族谱，当然，随着我们 进行了详细的分析，我们现在知道 她属于“露西”一族，这一族 被称做阿法南方古猿。08:14The next exciting question is girl or boy,and how old was shewhen she died.下一个令人激动的问题是女孩还是男孩，当她死亡的时候有多大？08:24You can determine the sex of the individual based on the sizeof the teeth.你可以根据牙齿的大小判断 一个人的性别。08:29How?怎么做到？08:35You know,in primates,there is this phenomenon calledsexual dimorphism,which simply means males are largerthan females and males have larger teeth than the females.大家知道，在灵长类动物中，有一种现象 叫做两性异型，简单来讲就是 男性要比女性要大一些，男性的牙齿要比女性更大。08:36But to do that,you need the permanent dentition,which youdont see here because what you have here are the babyteeth.不过要做到那一点，你需要找到恒齿，我们在这里看不到，因为我们所有的是 婴儿的牙齿。08:44But using the CT scanning technology,which is normallyused for medical purposes,you can go deep into the mouthand come up with this beautiful image showing you boththe baby teeth here and the still-growing adult teeth here.但使用CT扫描技术，即常用于医学目的的那种 你可以深入口腔，获取那些既可以显示婴儿牙齿 又可以显示正在生长的成人牙齿 的美丽图像。08:50primates:n.灵长类 dimorphism:n.动植二态性;同种二形 dentition:n.齿列;生齿;脊椎齿系 scanning:n.扫描;计搜索,观测;扫掠/adj.扫描的;观测的;搜索的;扫掠的/v.扫描(scan的现在分词);浏览 come up with:提出;想出;赶上So when you measure those teeth,it was clear that shestarted out to be a girl with very small canine teeth.所以当我们测量这些牙齿时，就这么小的犬齿来看，很明显 她是个女孩。09:03And to know how old she was when she died,what you do isyou do an informed estimate and you say how much timewould be required to form this amount of teeth,and theanswer was three.要想知道她死时有多少岁，你能够做的 就是去做一个可靠的估计，你要知道形成这个牙齿要花多长时间，我们的答案就是三岁。09:11So this girl died when she was about three,3.3 million yearsago.因此这个女孩在约三岁时夭折了，距今330万年。09:24So with all that information,the big question is-what do weactually-what does she tell us?因此有了这么多信息，最大的问题就是 我们实际上她告诉了我们什么事情？09:29To answer this question,we can phrase another question-what do we actually know about our ancestors?要回答这个问题，我们可以引用另一个问题关于我们的祖先我们究竟了解多少？09:36We want to know how they looked like,how they behaved,how they walked around,and how they lived and grew up.我们想了解他们长相如何，行为如何，如何行走，以及它们如何生活和成长。09:41And among the answers that you can get from this skeletonare included-first,this skeleton documents for the first timehow infants looked over three million years ago.你可以从这具骨骼中找到的答案已经 囊括了以上的疑问首先，这句骨骼首次记录了 距今300万年前的孤儿长什么样儿。09:48And second,she tells us that she walked upright,but hadsome adaptation for tree-climbing.其次，她告诉了我们她是直立行走的，不过仍具有一些爬树的适应性10:03infants:n.婴儿(infant的复数);婴幼儿 adaptation:n.适应;改编;改编本,改写本And more interesting,however,is the brain in this child wasstill growing.更令人觉得有趣的是，然而，这个孩子的大脑仍然在成长。10:09At age three,if you have a still-growing brain,its a humanbehavior.三岁时，如果你的大脑还在成长，这就属于人类的特征了。10:13In chimps,by age three,the brain is formed over 90 percent.三岁的黑猩猩，其大脑已经90%成型。10:18Thats why they can cope with their environment very easilyafter birth-faster than us,anyway.这正是它们在出生以后很快就能适应环境 的原因无论怎样，适应的比我们快。10:23But in humans,we continue to grow our brains.反观人类，我们则继续进行脑部发育。10:29Thats why we need care from our parents.这也是我们为何需要父母照顾的原因。