Who are we? That is the big question. And essentially we are just an upright-walking, big-brained, super-intelligent ape. This could be us. We belong to the family called the Hominidae. We are the species called Homo sapiens sapiens, and it's important to remember that, in terms of our place in the world today and our future on planet Earth.
Tko smo mi? To je veliko pitanje. U biti mi smo samo uspravno-hodajući, velikoga mozga, super-inteligentan čovjekoliki majmun. Ovo bismo mogli biti mi. Pripadamo obitelji koja se zove Hominidi. Mi smo vrsta koja se zove Homo sapiens sapiens, i važno je to zapamtiti u smislu naše uloge u svijetu danas, i naše budućnosti na planeti Zemlji.
We are one species of about five and a half thousand mammalian species that exist on planet Earth today. And that's just a tiny fraction of all species that have ever lived on the planet in past times. We're one species out of approximately, or let's say, at least 16 upright-walking apes that have existed over the past six to eight million years. But as far as we know, we're the only upright-walking ape that exists on planet Earth today, except for the bonobos.
Mi smo jedna vrsta od oko pet i pol tisuća vrsta sisavaca koje postoje danas na planeti Zemlji. I to je samo mali fragment svih vrsta koje su ikad živjele na planeti u prošlim vremenima. Mi smo jedna vrsta od oko -- ili recimo od namanje 16 uspravno-hodajućih čovjekolikih majmuna koji su postojali tijekom prošlih šest do osam milijuna godina. Ali, koliko nam je poznato, mi smo jedini uspravno-hodajući čovjekoliki majmun koji postoji na planeti Zemlji, s izuzetkom bonobo majmuna.
And it's important to remember that, because the bonobos are so human, and they share 99 percent of their genes with us. And we share our origins with a handful of the living great apes. It's important to remember that we evolved. Now, I know that's a dirty word for some people, but we evolved from common ancestors with the gorillas, the chimpanzee and also the bonobos. We have a common past, and we have a common future. And it is important to remember that all of these great apes have come on as long and as interesting evolutionary journey as we ourselves have today. And it's this journey that is of such interest to humanity, and it's this journey that has been the focus of the past three generations of my family, as we've been in East Africa looking for the fossil remains of our ancestors to try and piece together our evolutionary past.
I važno je zapamtiti, obzirom da su bonobo majmuni toliko nalik čovjeku, da dijele 99 posto svojih gena s nama, i da mi dijelimo naše korijene s nekolicinom živućih velikih čovjekolikih majmuna. Važno je zapamtiti da smo evoluirali. I sad, znam da to zvuči prljavo nekim ljudima, ali mi smo evoluirali od zajedničkih predaka zajedno s gorilama, čimpanzama, kao i s bonobo majmunima. Imamo zajedničku prošlost, a imamo i zajedničku budućnost, i važno je zapamtiti da su svi ovi veliki čovjekoliki majmuni došli s isto toliko dugog i toliko zanimljivog evolucijskog putovanja, kao i mi danas. I upravo je to putovanje od posebnog zanimanja za čovječanstvo, i to je putovanje bilo u žarištu zanimanja protekle tri generacije moje obitelji, obzirom da smo bili u istočnoj Africi tražeći fosilne ostatke naših predaka i pokušavajući, komad po komad, složiti našu evolucijsku prošlost.
And this is how we look for them. A group of dedicated young men and women walk very slowly out across vast areas of Africa, looking for small fragments of bone, fossil bone, that may be on the surface. And that's an example of what we may do as we walk across the landscape in Northern Kenya, looking for fossils. I doubt many of you in the audience can see the fossil that's in this picture, but if you look very carefully, there is a jaw, a lower jaw, of a 4.1-million-year-old upright-walking ape as it was found at Lake Turkana on the west side. (Laughter) It's extremely time-consuming, labor-intensive and it is something that is going to involve a lot more people, to begin to piece together our past. We still really haven't got a very complete picture of it.
Evo ovdje vidite kako ih tražimo. Skupina požrtvovnih mladih muškaraca i žena hoda vrlo polako golemim prostranstvima Afrike, tražeći male fragmente kostiju, fosilnih kostiju, koji bi mogli biti na površini. A ovdje je primjer onoga što bismo mogli raditi dok hodamo pejzažima Sjeverne Kenije, tražeći fosile. Sumnjam da mnogi od vas u publici mogu vidjeti fosil na ovoj slici, ali ako gledate vrlo pažljivo, ovdje je čeljust -- donja čeljust -- uspravno-hodajućeg čovjekolikog majmuna starog 4,1 milijun godina kako je pronađen kod jezera Turkana na zapadnoj obali. (Smijeh) To uzima krajnje mnogo vremena, radno je intenzivno, a takvo je da će trebati uključivanje mnogo više ljudi za početak sastavljanja naše povijesti. Još uvijek zaista nemamo vrlo cjelovitu sliku svega toga.
When we find a fossil, we mark it. Today, we've got great technology: we have GPS. We mark it with a GPS fix, and we also take a digital photograph of the specimen, so we could essentially put it back on the surface, exactly where we found it. And we can bring all this information into big GIS packages, today. When we then find something very important, like the bones of a human ancestor, we begin to excavate it extremely carefully and slowly, using dental picks and fine paintbrushes. And all the sediment is then put through these screens, and where we go again through it very carefully, looking for small bone fragments, and it's then washed.
Kad nađemo fosil, označimo ga. Danas imamo izvrsnu tehnologiju, imamo GPS. Označimo ga s GPS fix-om, a također napravimo i digitalnu fotografiju primjerka tako da ga, u osnovi, možemo vratiti natrag na površinu, točno na mjesto gdje smo ga našli, a možemo sve ove informacije pohraniti zajedno u današnje GPS pakete. Kad pronađemo nešto vrlo značajno, kao kosti ljudskog pretka, započinjemo otkopavati krajnje pažljivo i polako, koristeći čačkalice i fine kistove. A sav sediment stavlja se zatim u ova sita, i tu probiremo sve još jednom vrlo pažljivo, tražeći male fragmente kostiju, a zatim se sve opere.
And these things are so exciting. They are so often the only, or the very first time that anybody has ever seen the remains. And here's a very special moment, when my mother and myself were digging up some remains of human ancestors. And it is one of the most special things to ever do with your mother. (Laughter) Not many people can say that.
Ove su stvari vrlo uzbudljive, one su tako često jedini, ili prvi put uopće, da je bilo tko vidio te ostatke. A ovdje je vrlo poseban trenutak u kojem smo moja majka i ja otkopavali neke ostatke ljudskih predaka, i to je jedna od onih najposebnijih stvari koje ikad možete raditi sa svojom majkom. (Smijeh) Ne može mnogo ljudi tako nešto reći.
But now, let me take you back to Africa, two million years ago. I'd just like to point out, if you look at the map of Africa, it does actually look like a hominid skull in its shape. Now we're going to go to the East African and the Rift Valley. It essentially runs up from the Gulf of Aden, or runs down to Lake Malawi. And the Rift Valley is a depression. It's a basin, and rivers flow down from the highlands into the basin, carrying sediment, preserving the bones of animals that lived there.
I sad, dozvolite mi da vas vratim natrag u Afriku, prije dva milijuna godina. Samo bih željela nešto istaknuti, ako pogledate zemljovid Afrike, ona zaista po svom obliku izgleda kao lubanja hominida. A sada ćemo otići u Istočno-afričku i Rift dolinu. U biti, ona se prostire od zaljeva Aden pa sve dolje do jezera Malawi. Dolina Rift je depresija. To je porječje, a rijeke teku od brdskih predjela prema dolje i slijevaju se u porječje, noseći sedimente, čuvajući kosti životinja koje su tamo živjele.
If you want to become a fossil, you actually need to die somewhere where your bones will be rapidly buried. You then hope that the earth moves in such a way as to bring the bones back up to the surface. And then you hope that one of us lot will walk around and find small pieces of you. (Laughter) OK, so it is absolutely surprising that we know as much as we do know today about our ancestors, because it's incredibly difficult, A, for these things to become -- to be -- preserved, and secondly, for them to have been brought back up to the surface. And we really have only spent 50 years looking for these remains, and begin to actually piece together our evolutionary story.
Ako želite postati fosil, onda zapravo trebate umrijeti negdje gdje će vaše kosti biti brzo zakopane. Zatim se nadate da će se zemlja pomicati na takav način da će dovesti kosti natrag na površinu. I onda se nadate da će vas netko od naše ekipe hodati okolo i naći male komadiće vas. (Smijeh) Dakle, zapravo je nadasve iznenađujuće da znamo toliko mnogo koliko danas znamo o našim precima, jer je iznimno teško, prvo, za ove stvari da postanu -- da ostanu sačuvane, i drugo, da su donesene natrag na površinu. A zapravo smo potrošli samo 50 godina tražeći ove ostatke, i započeli sastavljati, dio po dio, našu evolucijsku priču.
So, let's go to Lake Turkana, which is one such lake basin in the very north of our country, Kenya. And if you look north here, there's a big river that flows into the lake that's been carrying sediment and preserving the remains of the animals that lived there. Fossil sites run up and down both lengths of that lake basin, which represents some 20,000 square miles. That's a huge job that we've got on our hands. Two million years ago at Lake Turkana, Homo erectus, one of our human ancestors, actually lived in this region. You can see some of the major fossil sites that we've been working in the north. But, essentially, two million years ago, Homo erectus, up in the far right corner, lived alongside three other species of human ancestor. And here is a skull of a Homo erectus, which I just pulled off the shelf there. (Laughter)
Dakle, otiđimo do jezera Turkana, koje je jedno takvo porječje, na krajnjem sjeveru naše zemlje, Kenije. Ako pogledate ovdje na sjeveru, postoji velika rijeka koja otječe u jezero, koja je nosila sedimente i čuvala ostatke životinja koje su ovdje živjele. Nalazišta fosila prostiru se duž obje strane jezerskog porječja, koje zauzima oko 20.000 kvadratnih milja. To je golem posao koji je u našim rukama. Prije dva milijuna godina kod jezera Turkana, Homo erectus, jedan od ljudskih predaka, je zapravo živio u ovom području. Ovdje možete vidjeti neke od nalazišta fosila na kojima smo radili na sjeveru, ali u biti, prije dva milijuna godina Homo erectus, gore sasvim u desnom kutu, živio je istovremeno s druge tri vrste ljudskih predaka. Ovo ovdje je lubanja Homo erectusa, koju sam upravo skinula s ove police. (Smijeh)
But it is not to say that being a single species on planet Earth is the norm. In fact, if you go back in time, it is the norm that there are multiple species of hominids or of human ancestors that coexist at any one time. Where did these things come from? That's what we're still trying to find answers to, and it is important to realize that there is diversity in all different species, and our ancestors are no exception. Here's some reconstructions of some of the fossils that have been found from Lake Turkana.
Ali, ne možemo reći da je biti jedinom vrstom na planeti Zemlji pravilo. U stvari, ako se vratimo unatrag u prošlost, u pravilu postoje brojne vrste hominida ili ljudskih predaka koji su živjeli zajedno u isto vrijeme. Odakle su došle ove stvari? To je ono na što još uvijek želimo naći odgovor, i važno je shvatiti da postoji raznolikost kod svih različitih vrsta, a naši preci nisu u tome izuzetak. Ovdje su neke rekonstrukcije nekih od fosila koji su pronađeni kod jezera Turkana.
But I was very lucky to have been brought up in Kenya, essentially accompanying my parents to Lake Turkana in search of human remains. And we were able to dig up, when we got old enough, fossils such as this, a slender-snouted crocodile. And we dug up giant tortoises, and elephants and things like that. But when I was 12, as I was in this picture, a very exciting expedition was in place on the west side, when they found essentially the skeleton of this Homo erectus.
Ali, ja sam imala sreću što sam odgajana u Keniji, prvenstveno prateći svoje roditelje do jezera Turkana, tragajući za ljudskim ostacima. I uspjeli smo otkopati, kad smo bili dovoljno odrasli, fosile kao što je ovaj mršavi oklopljeni krokodil, a otkopali smo i divovske kornjače, slonove i takve stvari. Ali, kad sam imala 12 godina, kao na ovoj fotografiji, provodila se vrlo uzbudljiva ekspedicija na zapadnoj obali, u vrijeme kad je prvenstveno pronađen kostur ovog Homo erectusa.
I could relate to this Homo erectus skeleton very well, because I was the same age that he was when he died. And I imagined him to be tall, dark-skinned. His brothers certainly were able to run long distances chasing prey, probably sweating heavily as they did so. He was very able to use stones effectively as tools. And this individual himself, this one that I'm holding up here, actually had a bad back. He'd probably had an injury as a child. He had a scoliosis and therefore must have been looked after quite carefully by other female, and probably much smaller, members of his family group, to have got to where he did in life, age 12. Unfortunately for him, he fell into a swamp and couldn't get out. Essentially, his bones were rapidly buried and beautifully preserved.
Mogla sam se lako povezati s kosturom ovog Homo erectusa, jer sam bila jednako toliko stara koliko i on kad je umro. I tada sam ga zamišljala kao visokog, tamne puti. Njegova su braća zasigurno mogla daleko trčati hvatajući plijen i pritom se vjerojatno puno znojiti. Bio je vrlo sposoban učinkovito koristiti kamenja kao oruđe. A ovaj individualac ovdje, ovaj kojeg držim ovdje gore, zapravo je imao bolesna leđa -- vjerojatno je bio ozlijeđen kao dijete. Imao je skoliozu i stoga se sigurno o njemu trebala brinuti vrlo pažljivo neka žena, kao i vjerojatno mnogo mlađi članovi njegove obiteljske skupine, kako bi dospio tamo gdje je u životu dospio, s 12 godina. Nažalost po njega, upao je u močvaru i nije se mogao iz nje izvući. U biti, njegove su kosti brzo zakopane i izvrsno sačuvane.
And he remained there until 1.6 million years later, when this very famous fossil hunter, Kamoya Kimeu, walked along a small hillside and found that small piece of his skull lying on the surface amongst the pebbles, recognized it as being hominid. It's actually this little piece up here on the top. Well, an excavation was begun immediately, and more and more little bits of skull started to be extracted from the sediment. And what was so fun about it was this: the skull pieces got closer and closer to the roots of the tree, and fairly recently the tree had grown up, but it had found that the skull had captured nice water in the hillside, and so it had decided to grow its roots in and around this, holding it in place and preventing it from washing away down the slope. We began to find limb bones; we found finger bones, the bones of the pelvis, vertebrae, ribs, the collar bones, things that had never, ever been seen before in Homo erectus. It was truly exciting. He had a body very similar to our own, and he was on the threshold of becoming human.
I ostao je na tom mjestu do 1,6 milijuna godina kasnije kad je ovaj vrlo čuveni lovac na fosile, Kamoya Kimeu, hodao uz mali brežuljak i našao taj mali komad njegove lubanje na površini, među oblucima, te ga prepoznao kao hominida. Zapravo, to je ovaj mali komadić ovdje gore na vrhu. I tako, iskopavanje je započelo odmah, i sve se više i više malih komadića lubanje počelo izdvajati iz sedimenta. I ono što je bilo zabavno u ovome -- komadići lubanje su se sve više i više približavali korijenu stabla, a stablo je relativno nedavno izraslo, ali je uvidjelo da mu je lubanja zagradila zgodan potočić na brežuljku, tako da je odlučilo razviti svoje korijenje unutar i oko nje, držeći je tako u mjestu i sprječavajući njeno ispiranje niz padinu. Počeli smo nalaziti kosti udova, našli smo kosti prstiju, kosti zdjelice, kralježnice, rebara, vratne kosti, stvari koje nikad ranije do tada nisu viđene kod Homo erectusa. To je bilo istinski uzbudljivo. Imao je tijelo vrlo slično našem i bio je na pragu postanka čovjekom.
Well, shortly afterwards, members of his species started to move northwards out of Africa, and you start to see fossils of Homo erectus in Georgia, China and also in parts of Indonesia. So, Homo erectus was the first human ancestor to leave Africa and begin its spread across the globe. Some exciting finds, again, as I mentioned, from Dmanisi, in the Republic of Georgia. But also, surprising finds recently announced from the Island of Flores in Indonesia, where a group of these human ancestors have been isolated, and have become dwarfed, and they're only about a meter in height. But they lived only 18,000 years ago, and that is truly extraordinary to think about.
I tako, kratko poslije toga, članovi njegove vrste počeli su se kretati prema sjeveru i van Afrike; tako su se počeli viđati fosili Homo erectusa u Gruziji, Kini, a također i u djelovima Indonezije. Dakle, Homo erectus je bio prvi predak čovjeka koji je napustio Afriku i počeo se širiti diljem svijeta. Ovo su neki zanimljivi pronalasci, ponavljam, kao što sam rekla, iz Dmanisija u Republici Gruziji. Ali, ovo su također iznenađujući pronalasci, nedavno objavljeni s otoka Floresa u Indoneziji, gdje je skupina ovih ljudskih predaka bila izolirana, i postala patuljasta; samo su oko jednog metra visoki. Živjeli su prije samo 18.000 godina, a to je nešto istinski izvanredno o čemu možemo razmišljati.
Just to put this in terms of generations, because people do find it hard to think of time, Homo erectus left Africa 90,000 generations ago. We evolved essentially from an African stock. Again, at about 200,000 years as a fully-fledged us. And we only left Africa about 70,000 years ago. And until 30,000 years ago, at least three upright-walking apes shared the planet Earth.
Ukoliko to pretvorimo u mjerilo generacija, jer ljudima je teško predočiti pojam vremena, Homo erectus je napustio Afriku prije 90.000 generacija. Mi smo prvenstveno evoluirali iz afričke loze. I još jednom da kažem, formirali smo se prije 200.000 godina, a Afriku smo napustili prije 70.000 godina. A sve do prije 30.000 godina najmanje tri uspravno-hodajuća čovjekolika majmuna zajednički su dijelili planet Zemlju.
The question now is, well, who are we? We're certainly a polluting, wasteful, aggressive species, with a few nice things thrown in, perhaps. (Laughter) For the most part, we're not particularly pleasant at all. We have a much larger brain than our ape ancestors. Is this a good evolutionary adaptation, or is it going to lead us to being the shortest-lived hominid species on planet Earth?
I sad, došli smo do pitanja: "Tko smo mi?" Mi smo zasigurno zagađivačka, rastrošna, agresivna vrsta, s nekoliko dobrih stvari koje bismo možda mogli tu nadodati. (Smijeh) Uglavnom, nismo uopće posebno ugodni. Imamo mnogo veći mozak od naših predaka - čovjekolikih majmuna. Je li ovo dobra evolucijska adaptacija, ili će nas odvesti do toga da ćemo postati najkraće-živućom vrstom hominida na planeti Zemlji?
And what is it that really makes us us? I think it's our collective intelligence. It's our ability to write things down, our language and our consciousness. From very primitive beginnings, with a very crude tool kit of stones, we now have a very advanced tool kit, and our tool use has really reached unprecedented levels: we've got buggies to Mars; we've mapped the human genome; and recently even created synthetic life, thanks to Craig Venter.
A što je ono što nas čini - nas? Mislim da je to naša kolektivna inteligencija. Naša sposobnost da zapišemo stvari na papir, naš jezik i naša savjest. Od vrlo primitivnih početaka, s vrlo grubim alatima od kamena, sada posjedujemo vrlo napredne alate, a korištenje tih alata je zbilja doseglo rekordnu razinu. Imamo bagije na Marsu, mapirali smo ljudski genom, a nedavno smo čak stvorili sintetički život, zahvaljujući Craigu Venteru.
And we've also managed to communicate with people all over the world, from extraordinary places. Even from within an excavation in northern Kenya, we can talk to people about what we're doing. As Al Gore so clearly has reminded us, we have reached extraordinary numbers of people on this planet. Human ancestors really only survive on planet Earth, if you look at the fossil record, for about, on average, a million years at a time. We've only been around for the past 200,000 years as a species, yet we've reached a population of more than six and a half billion people.
A uspjeli smo, također, komunicirati s ljudima diljem svijeta, s najneobičnijih mjesta. Čak i s lokacija iskopavanja u sjevernoj Keniji, možemo razgovarati s ljudima o onome što radimo. Kao što nas je Al Gore tako jasno podsjetio, dosegli smo ogroman broj ljudi na ovoj planeti. Ljudski preci, u biti, preživljavaju na planeti Zemlji, ako gledate na fosilne podatke, u prosjeku oko milijun godina svaki. Kao vrsta postojimo tek posljednjih 200.000 godina, a unatoč tome dosegli smo brojku višu od šest i pol milijardi ljudi.
And last year, our population grew by 80 million. I mean, these are extraordinary numbers. You can see here, again, taken from Al Gore's book. But what's happened is our technology has removed the checks and balances on our population growth. We have to control our numbers, and I think this is as important as anything else that's being done in the world today. But we have to control our numbers, because we can't really hold it together as a species.
Samo protekle godine broj stanovnika narastao je za 80 milijuna. Želim reći, ovo su zaista ogromni brojevi. Ovdje možete još jednom vidjeti, preuzeto iz knjige Ala Gorea -- ono što se dogodilo jest da je naša tehnologija uklonila zapreke i uravnoteženost našeg populacijskog rasta. Moramo kontrolirati naše brojke, i mislim da je ovo jednako važno kao i bilo što drugo što se radi danas u svijetu. Ali, moramo kontrolirati naše brojke, jer ne možemo izdržati zajedno kao vrsta.
My father so appropriately put it, that "We are certainly the only animal that makes conscious choices that are bad for our survival as a species." Can we hold it together? It's important to remember that we all evolved in Africa. We all have an African origin. We have a common past and we share a common future. Evolutionarily speaking, we're just a blip. We're sitting on the edge of a precipice, and we have the tools and the technology at our hands to communicate what needs to be done to hold it together today. We could tell every single human being out there, if we really wanted to. But will we do that, or will we just let nature take its course?
Moj je otac to tako prikladno izrazio, da smo mi zasigurno jedine životinje koje svjesno donose odluke koje su loše za preživljavanje nas kao vrste. Možemo li zajedno izdržati? Važno je zapamtiti da smo evoluirali u Africi. Imamo afričke korijene. Imamo zajedničku prošlost i dijelimo zajedničku budućnost. Evolucijski govoreći, mi smo samo jedna mrljica. Sjedimo na rubu ponora, i pri ruci imamo alate i tehnologiju s kojom možemo iskomunicirati što treba učiniti kako bi se danas zajedno održali. Mogli bismo to reći svakom pojedinom ljudskom biću tamo vani, ukoliko bismo to zaista željeli. Ali, hoćemo li to učiniti ili ćemo samo prepustiti prirodi svoj tijek?
Well, to end on a very positive note, I think evolutionarily speaking, this is probably a fairly good thing, in the end. I'll leave it at that, thank you very much. (Applause)
Ipak, da završim s pozitivnom porukom. Mislim da, evolucijski govoreći, to je vjerojatno u konačnici i dobra stvar. Zaključit ću s tim, hvala vam na pozornosti. (Pljesak)