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Australopithecus afarensis lived between3.85 and 2.95 million years ago.

（圖解：阿法南方古猿生活在385至295萬(wàn)年前）

New evidence suggests hominins firstdeveloped outsized brains by scavenging fatty animal marrow, rather thanactively hunting for meat.

副標(biāo)題：新的證據(jù)表明，古人類能第一個(gè)演化出特大號(hào)的大腦靠的是食用動(dòng)物脂髓，而不是積極地獵取肉食。

NORTHERN ETHIOPIA WAS once home to a vast,ancient lake. Saber-toothed cats prowled around it, giant crocodiles swamwithin. The streams and rivers that fed it — over 3 million years ago, duringthe Pliocene — left behind trails of sediment that have now hardened intosandstone.

埃塞俄比亞北部曾經(jīng)是一個(gè)巨大古湖泊的故鄉(xiāng)。劍齒虎在它周邊潛行，巨大的鱷魚在其中游曳。三百多萬(wàn)年前上新世的溪水河流為其蓄積水源，留下的沉積物痕跡如今已經(jīng)變硬，成為了砂巖。

Deposited within these layers are fossils:some of early hominins, along with the bones of hippos, antelope, andelephants. Anthropologist Jessica Thompson encountered two of these specimens,from an area named Dikika, in 2010.

沉積在這些地層中的是化石：一些早期人類、連同河馬、羚羊和大象的骨頭。2010年時(shí)，人類學(xué)家杰西卡·湯普森在一個(gè)叫迪奇卡的地區(qū)偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)了其中兩具標(biāo)本。

Humans are the only primate to regularlyconsume animals larger than themselves. This nutritional exploitation,something Thompson and her colleagues call the “human predatory pattern,” haslong been synonymous with the flesh-eating, man-the-hunter view of humanorigins.

人類是唯一一種習(xí)慣性食用體型比自己更大的動(dòng)物的靈長(zhǎng)類動(dòng)物。這種對(duì)營(yíng)養(yǎng)物質(zhì)的利用，被湯普森和她的同事們稱為“人類掠食模式”，長(zhǎng)久以來(lái)，這和人類起源中吃生肉、狩獵者的觀點(diǎn)是同義詞。

Because large animals such as antelope packa serious micro-and-macro-nutrient punch, scientists have thought their meatcontributed to humanity’s outsized brains. A consensus arose in the 1950s thatour ancestors first hunted small animals before moving on to larger beastsaround 2.6 million years ago. Flaked tool use and meat eating became definingcharacteristics of the Homo genus.

由于羚羊這樣的大型動(dòng)物在微觀和宏觀層面上都富有營(yíng)養(yǎng)效力，科學(xué)家們已經(jīng)認(rèn)為它們的肉對(duì)人類特大號(hào)的大腦是有所貢獻(xiàn)的。五十年代的時(shí)候出現(xiàn)過(guò)一個(gè)共識(shí)，即我們的祖先一開(kāi)始捕獵的是小型動(dòng)物，直到約260萬(wàn)年前才轉(zhuǎn)換到捕獵大型野獸。薄片狀工具的使用和吃肉成了人屬的本質(zhì)特征。

“It’s a very appealing story,” says Thompson. “Right around that timethere appeared to be the first stone tools and butchery marks. You have theorigins of our Homo genus. A lot of people like to associate that with what itmeans to be human.”

“這是一個(gè)非常有吸引力的故事”，湯普森說(shuō)?！熬驮谀莻€(gè)時(shí)期，似乎出現(xiàn)了第一件石器和宰割痕跡。這就找到了我們這個(gè)人屬的起源。有很多人喜歡把這一點(diǎn)和它對(duì)人類的意義聯(lián)系在一起?！?br/>
Then, starting in the mid-1980s, anopposing theory arose in which Homo’s emergence wasn’t so tightly coupled withthe origins of hunting and predatory dominance. Rather, early hominins firstaccessed brain-feeding nutrients through scavenging large animal carcasses. Thedebate has rolled on through the decades, with evidence for the scavengingtheory gradually building.

然后，從八十年代中期開(kāi)始出現(xiàn)了一種相反的理論，認(rèn)為人屬的出現(xiàn)，和狩獵與吃肉為主的起源之間的關(guān)系沒(méi)有那么緊密。相反，早期的古人類是靠以大型動(dòng)物的尸體為食來(lái)獲取補(bǔ)腦的營(yíng)養(yǎng)物質(zhì)。這場(chǎng)爭(zhēng)論已經(jīng)一路持續(xù)了幾十年，食腐理論的證據(jù)也逐漸建立起來(lái)。

The new paper goes further: Harvestingouter-bone meat would have come at significant costs, the authors argue. Thechance of encountering predators is high when scraping raw flesh from acarcass. Chewing raw meat without specialized teeth doesn’t give much energeticbenefit, studies have shown. In addition, meat exposed to the elements willquickly rot.

這篇新的論文又進(jìn)了一步：那些作者的主張是，獲取外部骨骼上的肉會(huì)付出巨大代價(jià)。從尸體上搜刮生肉時(shí)，遭遇掠食者的可能性會(huì)很高。研究已經(jīng)顯示，在沒(méi)有特化牙齒的情況下去咀嚼生肉，從精力方面考慮并不會(huì)帶來(lái)太多益處。此外，暴露在自然環(huán)境中的肉很快就會(huì)腐爛。?

Marrow and brains, meanwhile, are lockedinside bones and stay fresh longer. These highly nutritional parts are also aprecursor to the fatty acids involved with brain and eye development. And moreeasily than flesh-meat, bones could be carried away from carcass sites, safefrom predators.

與此同時(shí)，骨髓和大腦被鎖在骨頭內(nèi)部，保持新鮮的時(shí)間會(huì)更久。這些營(yíng)養(yǎng)價(jià)值很高的部分也是負(fù)責(zé)大腦和眼睛發(fā)育的脂肪酸的一種前體。而且比取肉更容易的是，骨頭是可以從尸骸所在地拿走的，如此就能保證安全，不會(huì)受到掠食者的威脅。

（譯注：前體物質(zhì)，是指能直接被微生物在生物合成過(guò)程中結(jié)合到產(chǎn)物分子，而自身結(jié)構(gòu)不發(fā)生過(guò)多變化，但產(chǎn)物的產(chǎn)量可以獲得較大提高的一類化合物）

Conventional thinking has been that thebehavioral package of early hominins was to go after meat and marrow together,explains Briana Pobiner, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution,who did not contribute to the new paper. But in the new paper, she says, “Thisteam has shown that marrow may have in fact been more important. It’s a nuance,but an important nuance.”

沒(méi)有參與這篇新論文的史密森學(xué)會(huì)古人類學(xué)家布里安娜·波賓納解釋到，在傳統(tǒng)的想法中，早期人類的行為包模式就是同時(shí)獵取肉和骨髓。但在這篇新論文中，她說(shuō)，“該團(tuán)隊(duì)已經(jīng)展示出，可能骨髓一直都是更重要的目標(biāo)。這是一個(gè)微妙的差別，但卻是一個(gè)很重要的微妙差別。”

As to who wielded these percussiveinstruments, the timeline presents a puzzle. The earliest Homo specimen is nowdated to 2.8 million years. The Dikika fossils suggest butchery behaviors at3.4 million years ago. Homo may have emerged earlier than scientists suspected— a theory that would need more fossil evidence to support it — or anotherhominin, such as Australopithecus, may have created tools before Homo.

至于是誰(shuí)在揮舞這些敲打工具，在時(shí)間軸上呈現(xiàn)為一個(gè)謎團(tuán)?，F(xiàn)今最早的古人類標(biāo)本可以追溯到280萬(wàn)年前。出土于迪奇卡的化石表明，宰割行為出現(xiàn)在340萬(wàn)年前。古人類的出現(xiàn)也許比科學(xué)家們猜想的更早（該理論需要更多的化石證據(jù)來(lái)支持），另一種古人類，比如南方古猿，也許在人屬出現(xiàn)之前就創(chuàng)造出了工具。

Some scholars aren’t convinced by thestudy’s arguments, however. For example, Craig Stanford, an anthropologist atthe University of Southern California, questions the emphasis on homininscavenging behavior appearing before hunting. “We have no examples today ofanimals that scavenge but don’t hunt,” he adds.

然而，有些學(xué)者并不信服該研究的論證。比如克雷格·斯坦福，他是南加州大學(xué)的人類學(xué)家，他所質(zhì)疑的是：研究強(qiáng)調(diào)了古人類在狩獵行為之前就出現(xiàn)了食腐行為。“我們找不到任何現(xiàn)存動(dòng)物食腐而不狩獵的例子”，他補(bǔ)充說(shuō)。

To test the new theory, the review authorssuggest seeking out further evidence of percussive tools that predate flakedtools. Researchers could, they note, broaden the search for the signatures ofsuch instruments within both the existing fossil record and at dig sites.Thompson’s graduate students, for example, are using 3D scanning and artificialintelligence techniques to improve the identification of marks on fossils —whether they were created by early hominins, saber-toothed cats, hyenas, orother types of creatures.

為了驗(yàn)證這個(gè)新理論，這篇評(píng)論的作者提議，找出敲打工具在時(shí)間上早于切削器的進(jìn)一步證據(jù)。他們提到，研究者可以在現(xiàn)存的化石記錄以及遺址挖掘中，同時(shí)擴(kuò)大對(duì)這類工具蛛絲馬跡的搜索。比如說(shuō)，湯普森的畢業(yè)生們正在使用3D掃描和人工智能技術(shù)來(lái)改善對(duì)化石上痕跡的鑒識(shí)水平，即它們是由早期人類，還是由劍齒虎、鬣狗或其他類型生物留下的。?

What they uncover could deal a blow totheir theory, but it will also, undoubtedly, enrich our understanding of howour ancestors evolved.

他們所揭示的可能會(huì)打擊到他們的理論，但毫無(wú)疑問(wèn)也會(huì)豐富我們對(duì)我們祖先進(jìn)化方式的理解。

評(píng)論翻譯
原創(chuàng)翻譯：龍騰網(wǎng) http://www.ltaaa.com 翻譯：yzy86 轉(zhuǎn)載請(qǐng)注明出處

1、I am wondering ifhominids in that period did hunt smaller animals and when they saw thecarcasses of larger animals, they salvaged what marrow and brain they couldfrom those animals?

我很想知道，那個(gè)時(shí)期的原始人類捕獵的是否確實(shí)是更小型的動(dòng)物，以及當(dāng)他們看見(jiàn)大型動(dòng)物的尸骸時(shí)，是否確實(shí)會(huì)在能力范圍內(nèi)把骨髓和大腦從那些尸體上搜刮出來(lái)吃？

2、It seems thatThoreau was onto something, “to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”.

似乎梭羅曾經(jīng)尋思過(guò)什么事兒，“深沉地活吧，把生命的精華（骨髓）全部吸取出來(lái)?！?br/>
（譯注：亨利·戴維·梭羅（Henry David Thoreau，1817-1862），美國(guó)作家、哲學(xué)家，超驗(yàn)主義代表人物，也是一位廢奴主義及自然主義者；有《瓦爾登湖》等作品存世）

3、A query: “We have no examples today ofanimals that scavenge but don’t hunt”. Yet, huge numbers of insect species,many rodents, vultures, etc might argue otherwise? The scavenging niche seemswell populated.

我有個(gè)疑問(wèn)：“我們找不到任何現(xiàn)存動(dòng)物食腐而不狩獵的例子”。然而，在大量的昆蟲(chóng)種類、很多嚙齒動(dòng)物、禿鷲等動(dòng)物身上能得出相反的結(jié)論？看起來(lái)，這些食腐的生態(tài)位數(shù)量是很大的。