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.
我們是誰? 這是一個很大的問題 而實質上我們只是直立行走的,有更大大腦的 超級智能的大猩猩 這就是我們 我們屬於名為“人科”的的家庭 我們是名為“智人”的物種 並且記住那個很重要 就我們在當今世界上所處的位置 和我們在地球的未來而言
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.
我們是 今天地球上所存在的 大約一千五百種哺乳動物之一 而那只是曾經生存在這個星球上的所有物種的 極其微小的一部份 我們是 過去六百萬年到八百萬年存在過的 大約或者說至少16種直立行走的物種之一 但就我們所知 我們是現今世界上所存的除了波诺波黑猿外 唯一直立行走的物種
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.
記住這個很重要 因為波諾波黑猿太像人了 他們與我們有99%相同的基因 而且起源都是少數的居住类人猿 記住我們由猿進化而來 我知道那對於一些人來說很難聽 但我們是和大猩猩 黑猩猩 還有波諾波黑猿 由共同的祖先進化而來的 我們有共同的過去 而且我們有共同的未來 所有這些偉大的物種都經歷過 像我們一樣的漫長而有趣的進化歷程 記住這些很重要 並且這對人類來說是一個很有意義的旅程 這個旅程成爲了我家三代人 一直關注的焦點 我們一直在東非尋找我們祖先的動物化石 試圖拼合我們的進化史
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.
我們是這樣尋找的 一群具有獻身精神的年輕人 在廣袤的非洲地區緩慢行走 尋找可能在地表上的骨骼碎片化石 舉個例子 我們在肯尼亞北部尋找化石時 我不確定你們觀眾是否能看到 圖片中的化石 但是如果你仔細看的話 這兒有個 410萬年歷史的直立行走的動物的下顎 在西部的圖爾卡納湖發現的 (笑聲) 這個工作很花時間 勞動量很大 當拼合歷史時 會涉及更多的人 我們仍然沒有得到全貌
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.
當我們找到化石時 做好標記 今天我們有先進的技術 有GPS(全球定位系統) 我們用GPS定位做標記 還給標本拍數碼照片 以便基本上能夠把標本還原在地表上 就在我們發掘到的地方 如今我們還能把信息放入GIS(地理信息系統)軟件里 當我們發現重要的東西時 比如人類祖先的骨骼 就開始用牙籤和漆刷 小心緩慢的挖掘 並且所有的沉澱物都要經過篩子過濾 還會很小心的再過濾 尋找曉得骨骼碎片 然後清洗
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.
這些事情令人興奮 這是他們面世 這是我母親和我挖掘 人類祖先遺骨的特殊時刻 這是跟母親一起做的 最特殊的事情之一 (笑聲) 不是所有人都能這樣
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.
現在 讓我帶你去兩百萬年前的非洲 我聲明一下 你看到的非洲地圖 確實形似古人類頭骨 現在我們去東非和大裂谷 起於亞丁灣 延伸到馬拉維湖 大裂谷是一個凹地是一個盆地 河流帶著沉澱物從高地流入盆地 保存著曾經生活在那兒的動物的遺骨
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.
如果要變成化石 你要在你的骨骼能夠 迅速被掩埋的地方死亡 然後期待土壤移動 能把你的骨骼帶回地表 然後期待我們中的一員能夠 在這兒饒走 找到你的一些碎片 (笑聲) 好了 現在能知道這麼多關於我們祖先的事情 相當讓人驚訝 因為這些太難了 首先 這些東西要被保藏 其次 要被帶回地表 我們花費了五十年尋找這些遺物 然後開始拼合我們的進化史
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)
讓我們去圖爾卡納湖 一個湖泊盆地 在我的祖國肯尼亞的北部 如果你向北看 有一條大河流入這個湖 帶著曾經在這兒生活過的動物的 沉澱物和保藏的遺骨 化石遺址就是這個湖泊盆地 也就是大約20,000平方英里 這是我們手頭的巨大的工作 在兩百萬年前的圖爾卡納湖 我們的祖先之一 直立猿人 居住在這個地區 你能看到我們在北面工作的主要的化石遺址的一部份 但事實上 兩百萬年前 直立猿人 和另外三種人類的祖先 居住在遠處的右上角 這是一個直立猿人的頭蓋骨 我剛從架子上拿下的 (笑聲)
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.
但不是說只有這一個物種 事實上 如果你回到從前 有多種原始人類或者人類祖先 在同一時間共存 他們來源於哪兒呢? 那就是我們一直試圖尋找的答案 意識到所有不同物種之間有差異性 我們的祖先也不例外 是很重要的 這是在圖爾卡納湖發掘的 一些化石的復原
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.
很幸運我在肯尼亞長大 陪同我父母去圖爾卡納湖 搜尋人類遺物 當我們年齡足夠大時 我們能夠挖掘化石 像這樣的一個狹吻鱷魚 挖掘大象龜 大象那樣的東西 但當我十二歲時 正如在圖片里那樣 在西部一次令人激動的探險 當他們發現直立猿人的骨骼時
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.
我對這個骨架記憶猶新 因為我當時跟他死去時的年齡一樣大 而且我想像他很高 深色皮膚 他的兄弟當然能跑很遠捕獵 可能汗流浹背 他也能使用石頭作為工具 而他自己 我要說 實際上很不幸 可能小孩時受過傷 他脊椎側凸 必須被其他女性小心地照顧 他可能是家裡較小的成員 才12歲 很不幸的是他陷入沼澤 不能出來 他的骨骼被掩埋 而且保存地很完整
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.
一直在那兒直到160萬年後 當著名的化石發掘者Kamoya Kimeu 沿著小坡走過時 發現地表上在卵石中間他的頭蓋骨碎片 認出了這是原始人類 這是頂部的小碎片 發掘即刻開始 越來越多的頭蓋骨碎片 從沉澱物種被發掘出來 有趣的是 頭蓋骨碎片越來越接近樹根 樹最近長大了 但發現頭蓋骨獲取山坡的水分 所以樹根就長在了這裡面和周圍 樹根抓著頭蓋骨 避免了頭蓋骨被沖下土坡 我們找到了肢干骨頭 指骨 盆骨 脊椎 肋骨 鎖骨 之前從來沒見過這樣的直立猿人 相當讓人興奮 他的身體跟我們很像 他處於進化為人類的起點
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.
後來 他的同類 開始從北部走出非洲 你開始在佐治亞 中國 印度尼西亞部份地區 看到直立猿人化石 所以 直立猿人是第一個走出非洲的人類祖先 然後開始遍佈全球 正如我提到的 一些令人興奮的發現 來自格魯吉亞的馬尼西的 也是令人驚訝的發現 最近宣佈 在印度尼西亞的佛咯勒斯島 一組被隔離的人類祖先 成為侏儒 他們大約只有一米高 他們只生存於18,000年前 這個很值得我們研究
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.
就世代而言 因為記時間比較難 直立猿人在90,000代以前離開非洲 我們都從非洲血統進化而來 我們經歷了20萬年才成熟 我們離開非洲只有7萬年 並且直到3萬年前 至少三個直立行走的物種存在於地球
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?
問題現在是 我們是誰? 我們當然是污染環境 浪費資源 好鬥的物種 可能還夾雜著一些好品質 (笑聲) 對於大部份人來說 我們不是特別滿意 我們有比猿類祖先更大的大腦 這是好的適應性進化 或者這將導致我們成為地球上最短暫存在的人種?
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.
到底是什麽造就了我們? 我認為是我們的集體智慧 是我們記錄事情的能力 我們的語言 我們的意識 最原始的開始我們有石頭工具 現在我們有先進的工具 而且工具的使用達到了空前的水平 我們能到達火星 也繪製出了人類基因 最近甚至創造了人造生命 歸功于Craig Venter
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.
而且我們也能夠 在全世界範圍交流通訊 即使在肯尼亞北部的遺跡洞穴 我們也能告訴人們我們在做什麽 Al Gore清楚地提醒了我們 我們在這個星球上 有太多的人口 人類祖先確實只存在于地球 如果你看化石記錄 平均存活大約一百萬年 我們只是200,000年來的一個物種 而現在人口已經超過六十五億
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.
去年人口增長了八千萬 我的意思是說這些數字特別龐大 再看看這兒 從AI Gore的書中摘取的 但是我們技術的改變已經 失去了隊人口增長的約束和平衡 我們不得不控制人口數量 這跟世界上其他任何所做的事情一樣重要 不得不控制人口數 因為我們作為一個物種不能團結在一起
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?
我父親適當地指出 我們是唯一能夠有意識的做出 不利於自身生存的選擇的物種 我們能夠團結嗎? 記住我們在非洲演變很重要 我們都起源於非洲 我們有共同的過去和未來 進化學上講 我們只是一個標誌 我們處在斷崖的邊緣 手中有工具和技術 團結一致 互相交流需要做什麽 如果願意我們能告訴在那兒的每個人 但我們會那樣做 或者我們只是順其自然?
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)
好了 做個樂觀的總結 我想進化學角度講 這最終可能是一件相當好的事情 就講到這裡 非常感謝 (掌聲)