I have 18 minutes to tell you what happened over the past six million years. All right. We all have come from a long way, here in Africa, and converged in this region of Africa, which is a place where 90 percent of our evolutionary process took place. And I say that not because I am African, but it's in Africa that you find the earliest evidence for human ancestors, upright walking traces, even the first technologies in the form of stone tools. So we all are Africans, and welcome home. All right.
在接下來的18分鐘裡,我要向你們講述 過去六百萬年所發生的事情。 好的。 我們都歷經了漫長的歷程, 在非洲這裡,在非洲這地區聚集, 這裡是我們 90% 的進化過程的發生之地。 我會這麼說的原因並不是因為我是非洲人, 而是因為在非洲,你可以找到 人類祖先最早的證據、直立行走的痕跡, 甚至是最早的科技----石頭工具(石器) 所以我們都是非洲人,歡迎你們回家。 好的。
I'm a paleoanthropologist, and my job is to define man's place in nature and explore what makes us human. And today, I will use Selam, the earliest child ever discovered, to tell you a story of all of us. Selam is our most complete skeleton of a three-year-old girl who lived and died 3.3 million years ago. She belongs to the species known as Australopithecus afarensis. You don't need to remember that. That's the Lucy species, and was found by my research team in December of 2000 in an area called Dikika. It's in the northeastern part of Ethiopia. And Selam means peace in many Ethiopian languages. We use that name to celebrate peace in the region and in the planet. And the fact that it was the cover story of all these famous magazines gives you already an idea of her significance, I think.
我是一名古人類學家,我的工作是去定義 人類在大自然中的地位,並且探索人類的本質, 今天我會透過 Selam -- 至今發現最遠古的小孩, 來告訴你一個關於我們所有人的故事。 Selam 是我們所擁有最完整的三歲女孩骸骨, 她生活且死於 330萬年前, 她屬於的物種是阿法南猿 (古人類種) 你不用記住這個。 那也是與 Lucy 同一物種,是由我們的研究小組 在2000的12月在一個叫做 Dikika 的地方發現的, 它在依索比亞東北部。 Selam 在很多依索比亞的語言中都代表著"和平" 我們選用了這個名字來祝願這一地區和這個地球的和平。 事實上它已成為很多著名雜誌的封面故事, 我想這一點已經告訴了你其重要性。
After I was invited by TED, I did some digging, because that's what we do, to know about my host. You don't just jump into an invitation. And I learned that the first technology appeared in the form of stone tools, 2.6 million years ago. First entertainment comes evidence from flutes that are 35,000 years old. And evidence for first design comes 75,000 years old -- beads. And you can do the same with your genes and track them back in time. And DNA analysis of living humans and chimpanzees teaches us today that we diverged sometime around seven million years ago and that these two species share over 98 percent of the same genetic material. I think knowing this is a very useful context within which we can think of our ancestry.
在受到 TED 的邀請後,我做了一些鑽研, 畢竟這就是我們在幹的事情,去了解關於我們的主顧。 你總不能亳無準備就接受邀請。 通過我的資料搜查,最早出現的科技 是在 260萬年前的石頭工具 (石器) 最早有證據證明的娛樂是來自於 35000年前的笛子, 而最早有證據證明的設計是來自於 75,000年前的珠子。 你也可以用同樣的辦法去追溯你的基因的歷史。 而對現在存的人類和黑猩猩的研究 告訴我們大約在 750萬年前,人類和黑猩猩分道揚鑣, 這兩個物種有 98%的基因結構是相同的。 我認為了解這些是對我們想像我們的祖先 提供了非常有用的背景資料。
However, DNA analysis informs us only about the beginning and the end, telling us nothing about what happened in the middle. So, for us, paleoanthropologists, our job is to find the hard evidence, the fossil evidence, to fill in this gap and see the different stages of development. Because it's only when you do that, that you can talk about -- (Laughter) -- it's only when you do that, [that] you can talk about how we looked like and how we behaved at different times, and how those likes and looks and behaviors changed through time. That then gives you an access to explore the biological mechanisms and forces that are responsible for this gradual change that made us what we are today. But finding the hard evidence is a very complicated endeavor. It's a systematic and scientific approach, which takes you to places that are remote, hot, hostile and often with no access.
不過,這些分析資料只告訴了我們 關於開始和結局,卻沒有告訴我們 其中經歷了什麼。 而對於我們古人類學家而言,我們的工作就是去找出實質的證據, 化石證據,來填補其中的空白, 及呈現發展過程中定的各個階段, 因為你做了這些,你才有東西可以說.... (笑聲) 你做了這些,你才有東西可以說出 在不同時期我們是長什麼樣,我們的行為是怎樣, 以上這些喜好、長相和行為如何隨著時間流逝而變化, 那就可以結我們一個途徑 去探索生物學的機際, 正是這些機際的力量 逐漸把我們變成今天這個樣子。 但是要找到實質的證據是一件非常複雜的任務。 這是一個系統的、科學的方法 來帶你去遙遠、炎熱、抗拒並且難以進入的地方,
Just to give you an example, when I went to Dikika, where Selam was found, in '99 -- and it's about 500 kilometers from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. It took us only seven hours to do the first 470 kilometers of the 500, but took four, solid hours to do the last only 30 kilometers. With the help of the locals and using just shovels and picks, I made my way. I was the first person to actually drive a car to the spot. When you get there, this is what you see, and it's the vastness of the place which makes you feel helpless and vulnerable. And once you make it there, the big question is where to start. (Laughter) And you find nothing for years and years.
例如,當我去了 Dikika, 也就是於 99年 Selam 被發現的地方, 那裡距離衣索比亞的首都阿地斯阿貝巴 (Addis Ababa) 約有500公里。 500公里的前470公里只花了我們7個小時的時間, 但最後的30個小時足足花了我們整整4個小時。 在當地人使用鏟子和鐵鎬的幫助之下,使得我能前進。 我算是開車到達這個地方的第一人。 當你到達那兒時,這就是你所看到的, 這片區域的遼闊會讓你感到人類自身的無助和脆弱。 一旦你到了那裡,最大的問題是該從那裡著手。 (笑聲) 之後年復一年的,你什麼也找不到。
When I go to places like this, which are paleontological sites, it's like going to a game park, an extinct game park. But what you find are not the human remains, such as Selam and Lucy, on a day-to-day basis. You find elephants, rhinos, monkeys, pigs, etc. But you could ask, how could these large mammals live in this desert environment? Of course, they cannot, but I'm telling you already that the environment and the carrying capacity of this region was drastically different from what we have today. A very important environmental lesson could be learned from this. Anyway, once we made it there, then it's a game park, as I said, an extinct game park. And our ancestors lived in that game park, but were just the minorities. They were not as successful and as widespread as the Homo sapiens that we are.
當我去到這樣的,屬於古人類學家研究的地點時, 就像是去了野生動物保護區,一個已滅絕了的野生動物保護區。 但你將找到的並不是人類的遺骨, 就像是 Selam 和 Lucy, 一天又一天,你找到的是大象、犀牛、猴子、野豬等等。 但是你可能會問,這樣的大型動物 如何能夠生存在這樣的沙漠環境中? 他們當然不能,但是我已告訴了你 這個地區的環境和容納生物的最高容量 已經和我們今天是截然不同的。 我們可以從這裡學到生態課程非常重要的一課。 不管怎樣,一旦我們到了那裡,它就是個野生動物保護區,正如我所說的一個已滅絕的野生動物保護區, 而我們的祖先就是生活在那野生動物保護區了。 但他們 (人類祖先) 只是少數族群,且他們並不像智人那樣的 成功生存且廣泛分布。
To tell you just an example, an anecdote about their rarity, I was going to this place every year and would do fieldwork here, and the assistants, of course, helped me do the surveys. They would find a bone and tell me, "Here is what you're looking for." I would say, "No, that's an elephant." Again, another one, "That's a monkey." "That's a pig," etc. So one of my assistants, who never went to school, said to me, "Listen, Zeray. You either don't know what you're looking for, or you're looking in the wrong place," he said. (Laughter) And I said, "Why?" "Because there were elephants and lions, and the people were scared and went somewhere else. Let's go somewhere else." Well, he was very tired, and it's really tiring.
再給你們舉一個例子,一個有關他們稀有的趣事。 我每年都要去這個地方,去做實地調查, 當然的,我的助手們會幫我一起去做這些調查。 他們找到一塊骨頭然後會告訴我:"這就是你要找的。" 我會說:"不,這是大象的。" 再一次,另一回是 ---- "這是猴子的" "那是野豬的" 等等 因此,我的一位從未上過學的助手對我說:"聽著,Zeray 或許你不知道你要找什麼, 或許是你找錯了地方了。" 他說。 (笑聲) 然後我說:"為什麼?" "因為這裡有大象和獅子, 所以人類會感到恐懼,就搬到其他地方去了。 所以我們該去別的地方吧。" 好吧,他非常疲憊了,實際上這事真的很讓人疲憊的。
It was then, after such hard work and many frustrating years that we found Selam, and you see the face here covered by sandstone. And here is actually the spinal column and the whole torso encased in a sandstone block, because she was buried by a river. What you have here seems to be nothing, but contains an incredible amount of scientific information that helps us explore what makes us human. This is the earliest and most complete juvenile human ancestor ever found in the history of paleoanthropology, an amazing piece of our long, long history. There were these three people and me, and I am taking the pictures, that's why I am not in.
我們經過了如此艱苦的工作和令人沮喪的歲月后才在找到 Selam 你看看這裡被砂岩覆蓋著的面孔, 實際上這裡的脊柱和整個軀幹 是嵌在砂岩中的 因為她是被埋葬於河流之中 (河葬) 你所看到的這個東西好像什麼都沒有, 但其實包含了極大量的科學訊息, 那是能夠幫助我們探索為什麼我們會成為人類。 這是古人類學歷史上所找到的 最早和最完整的人類祖先---- 一段是我們長久歷史中最嘆為觀止的片段。 這裡有三個人,而我負責拍照, 所以我不在照片中。
How would you feel if you were me? You have something extraordinary in your hand, but you are in the middle of nowhere? The feeling I had was a deep and quiet happiness and excitement, of course accompanied by a huge sense of responsibility, of making sure everything is safe.
如果你是我,你手中捧住意義非凡的東西,但你對它一點了解都沒有, 你會怎麼想? 我的感覺即是,深深的快樂和激動, 當然隨之而來的是巨大的責任, 那種要確保東西一切都安全的責任感。
Here is a close-up of the fossil, after five years of cleaning, preparation and description, which was very long, as I had to expose the bones from the sandstone block I just showed you in the previous slide. It took five years. In a way, this was like the second birth for the child, after 3.3 million years, but the labor was very long. And here is full scale -- it's a tiny bone. And in the middle is the minister of Ethiopian tourism, who came to visit the National Museum of Ethiopia while I was working there. And you see me worried and trying to protect my child, because you don't leave anyone with this kind of child, even a minister.
這是一塊化石的特寫, 它經過了五年清理、準備和修飾 --- 那是非常長的時間, 我需要從砂岩塊中把骨頭取出來, 就是在前一張片子給大家展示的投影片。 這就花費了5年。 在某種程度下,這就像是這年孩子在330萬年之后的第二次重生, 但勞動的時間是很長的, 這裡是一個真實的比例----這是一塊小骨頭。 中間是衣索比亞的旅遊部長, 當我在衣索比亞的國家博物館工作的時候來造訪了那裡。 你可以看到我很擔心,並且試圖保護我的孩子, 因為你不會把這樣的孩子託付給任何人, 即使是一個部長。
So then, once you've done that, the next stage is to know what it is. (Laughter) Once that was done, then it was possible to compare. We were able to tell that she belonged to the human family tree because the legs, the foot, and some features clearly showed that she walked upright, and upright walking is a hallmark in humanity. But in addition, if you compare the skull with a comparably aged chimpanzee and little George Bush here, you see that you have vertical forehead. And you see that in humans, because of the development of the pre-frontal cortex, it's called. You don't see that in chimpanzees, and you don't see this very projecting canine. So she belongs to our family tree, but within that, of course, you do detailed analysis, and we know now that she belongs to the Lucy species, known as Australopithecus afarensis.
所以一旦你那樣做了,下一步就是去明白這是為什麼。 (笑聲) 一旦工作完成了,就有進行比較的可能性了。 我們能夠告訴大家的是她屬於 人類大家庭的族譜,因為她的腿、腳 和其他一些特徵很明顯的顯示了她是直立行走的, 而直立行走的是人類的標誌。 但再進一步,如果你將這個頭骨 一個對等年齡的黑猩猩以及小布西 (前美國總統) 相比, 你可以看到你擁有垂直的前額, 這是你在人類中看得到的, 由於大腦前葉的發展所構成的 ---- 而你在黑猩猩身上看不到這一點, 且你也看不到這樣突出的犬齒, 所以她是屬於我們這一族譜,當然的, 隨著我們進行了詳細的分析,現在我們知道 她是屬於跟 Luzy 同一種族的, 這被稱為阿法南猿 (古人類) 的種族。
The next exciting question is, girl or boy? And how old was she when she died? You can determine the sex of the individual based on the size of the teeth. How? You know, in primates, there is this phenomenon called sexual dimorphism, which simply means males are larger than females and males have larger teeth than the females. But to do that, you need the permanent dentition, which you don't see here, because what you have here are the baby teeth. But using the CT scanning technology, which is normally used for medical purposes, you can go deep into the mouth and come up with this beautiful image showing you both the baby teeth here and the still-growing adult teeth here. So when you measure those teeth, it was clear that she turned out to be a girl with very small canine teeth. And to know how old she was when she died, what you do is you do an informed estimate, and you say, how much time would be required to form this amount of teeth, and the answer was three. So, this girl died when she was about three, 3.3 million years ago.
下一個令人感興趣的問題是這是女孩還是男孩, 及她死亡的時候是多大? 你可以根據牙齒的大小 去判斷她的性別。 怎麼做到? 大家都知道,在靈長類動物中,有這樣的一種現象 叫做兩性異性,簡單來說就是 男性要比女性長得大一些, 男性的牙齒比女性的更大。 不過要做到比較,你需要找到恆齒, 在這裡我們是看不到的,因為這是 嬰兒的牙齒。 但使用CT掃瞄技術, 就是在醫療目的常用的那種------ 你可以深入口腔,這細緻的圖象 顯示了嬰兒牙齒 及正在成長的成人牙齒。 所以當我們檢驗這些牙齒時, 以這麼小的犬齒來看, 很明顯的表示了她是個女孩。 要想知道她死時是多少歲,你能夠做到的是 去做一個有根據的估計,去知道形成這樣的牙齒要花多久, 我們得到的答案是三歲。 因此這個女孩是約在三歲時夭折, 是在距今330萬年前。
So, with all that information, the big question is -- what do we actually -- what does she tell us? To answer this question, we can phrase another question. What do we actually know about our ancestors? We want to know how they looked like, how they behaved, how they walked around, and how they lived and grew up. And among the answers that you can get from this skeleton are included: first, this skeleton documents, for the first time, how infants looked over three million years ago.
所以有了這所有的信息後,最大的問題是----- 我們實際上----從她那裡告訴了我們什麼事情? 要回答這個問題,我們可以引用另一個問題----- 我們實際上對我們祖先有多少了解? 我們想去了解他們是長什麼樣子、行為是怎樣、 是如何行走、 及她們是如何生活與成長。 你可以從這骸骨中找到包含以上的答案------ 首先,這具骸骨首次記錄了 距今300萬年前的嬰兒是長什麼樣子。
And second, she tells us that she walked upright, but had some adaptation for tree climbing. And more interesting, however, is the brain in this child was still growing. At age three, if you have a still-growing brain, it's a human behavior. In chimps, by age three, the brain is formed over 90 percent. That's why they can cope with their environment very easily after birth -- faster than us, anyway. But in humans, we continue to grow our brains. That's why we need care from our parents. But that care means also you learn. You spend more time with your parents. And that's very characteristic of humans and it's called childhood, which is this extended dependence of human children on their family or parents. So, the still-growing brain in this individual tells us that childhood, which requires an incredible social organization, a very complex social organization, emerged over three million years ago.
其次,她告訴了我們她是直立行走的, 不過還是具有一些爬樹的適應性, 更令人感到有趣的是,然而, 這個孩子的大腦仍然在成長。 在3歲時,如果你的大腦還在成長, 這就是屬於人類的特徵。 三歲時的黑猩猩,其大腦已經90%成型。 這正是他們出生后很快就能適應環境的原因----- 比我們人類成型得更快,不管怎樣 反觀人類,我們的腦部會繼續發育, 這也是我們為何還需要父母照顧的原因, 不過這樣的照顧也意味著在學習。 你跟父母在一起的時間更長, 這是人類很典型的特點,這叫做童年, 即小孩對其家庭或父母 更長久的依賴。 所以這個大腦正在成長的孩子 告訴我們她有童年, 一個極完善的社會組成才能擁有, 一個非常複雜的社會 組成於300多萬年前。
So, by being at the cusp of our evolutionary history, Selam unites us all and gives us a unique account on what makes us human. But not everything was human, and I will give you a very exciting example. This is called the hyoid bone. It's a bone which is right here. It supports your tongue from behind. It's, in a way, your voice box. It determines the type of voice you produce. It was not known in the fossil record, and we have it in this skeleton. When we did the analysis of this bone, it was clear that it looked very chimp-like, chimpanzee-like. So if you were there 3.3 million years ago, to hear when this girl was crying out for her mother, she would have sounded more like a chimpanzee than a human. Maybe you're wondering, "So, you see this ape feature, human feature, ape feature. What does that tell us?" You know, that is very exciting for us, because it demonstrates that things were changing slowly and progressively, and that evolution is in the making.
因此在我們進化的歷史的頂端, Selam 將我們統合起來,給予我們人之所以為人的 獨一無二的依據。 不過並不是都屬於人類的特徵,我會給你展示 一個令人感興趣的例子。 這個叫做舌骨,它就是長在這裡的骨頭。 它從後部支撐著你的舌頭。 在某種意義上,它就是你的聲匣。 它決定了你發音的聲線, 在化石史中它並不有名, 我們在這具骸骨上發現了它。 當我們蔚這骨頭進行分析時,這很明顯的 發現它非常像黑猩猩的 (舌骨)。 因此,如果你在330萬年前, 聽這個女孩哭喊著找媽媽時, 她的哭聲聽起來更像黑猩猩而非人類。 或許你會想:"那麼你看了猿類的特徵,人類的特徵,猿類的特徵。 這到底意味了什麼?" 要知道,這對我們來說是非常興奮, 因為它說明了事物的進展是緩慢而有漸漸的變化著。 進化正在慢慢形成。
To summarize the significance of this fossil, we can say the following. Up to now, the knowledge that we had about our ancestors came essentially from adult individuals because the fossils, the baby fossils, were missing. They don't preserve well, as you know. So the knowledge that we had about our ancestors, on how they looked like, how they behaved, was kind of biased toward adults. Imagine somebody coming from Mars and his job is to report on the type of people occupying our planet Earth, and you hide all the babies, the children, and he goes back and reports. Can you imagine how much biased his report would be? That's what somehow we were doing so far in the absence of the fossil children, so I think the new fossil fixes this problem.
總結這個化石的重要性, 我們可以談到以下幾點。 迄今為止,我們所擁有的關於祖先的知道知識, 基本上來自於成年人的化石, 因為是嬰孩的化石是缺少的。 正如大家所知道的,他們不易保存。 所以我們擁有關於我們祖先的知識 如長相如何、行為如何。 只是基於成年人的片面觀點。 想象一下有人從火星而來, 他的工作就是記錄正在統治地球的 各種人類,而我們把所有的嬰兒、孩童都藏起來了, 接著他回去匯報。 你可以想像這個報告將有多大的偏差麼? 這就是我們長久以來進行的工作, 尋找孩童的骸童的化石。 因此我認為這一具新的化石解決了這問題,
So, I think the most important question at the end is, what do we actually learn from specimens like this and from our past in general? Of course, in addition to extracting this huge amount of scientific information as to what makes us human, you know, the many human ancestors that have existed over the past six million years -- and there are more than 10 -- they did not have the knowledge, the technology and sophistications that we, Homo sapiens, have today. But if this species, ancient species, would travel in time and see us today, they would very much be very proud of their legacy, because they became the ancestors of the most successful species in the universe. And they were probably not aware of this future legacy, but they did great. Now the question is, we Homo sapiens today are in a position to decide about the future of our planet, possibly more. So the question is, are we up to the challenge? And can we really do better than these primitive, small-brained ancestors?
所以我覺得最終最重要的問題是 我們實際在上從這樣的標本了解什麼 和在我們過去常規中學到什麼? 當然,進一步來說得到這麼大量的科學信息 來證明我們人類之所以為人類, 很多存在於過去600萬年的遠古人類的祖先 至少有10個以上------ 他們並不具備我們智人今天所擁有的 知識、科技和技術。 不過如果這個物種、遠古的物種 會超越未來,來到今天看望我們, 他們將會為他們所留下的遺產而倍感驕傲, 因為他們是當前宇宙中最成功的 物種的祖先。 他們可能並不注重他們留給未來的遺產, 但他們確實很偉大。 現在的問題是,我們今天這些智人 正擔負著決定我們的星球未來的責任,責任可能更重大。 所以問題是,我們準備好迎接挑戰了麼? 我們真的比這些先區者、腦容量小的祖先 做得更好麼?
Among the most pressing challenges that our species is faced with today are the chronic problems of Africa. Needless to list them here, and there are more competent people to talk about this. Still, in my opinion, we have two choices. One is to continue to see a poor, ill, crying Africa, carrying guns, that depends on other people forever, or to promote an Africa which is confident, peaceful, independent, but cognizant of its huge problems and great values at the same time. I am for the second option, and I'm sure many of you are. And the key is to promote a positive African attitude towards Africa.
我們的物種今日所面臨的最大挑戰是 去面對非洲長久以來存在的問題。 無需一一去列舉,已經有很多智者 在討論相關問題。 然而,於我而言,我們有兩種選擇, 一是維持一個貧窮、病痛、哭泣的非洲---- 手持武器----永遠依靠別人; 或是去推動非但更自信、 和平、獨立,但同時能夠意識到自身面臨巨大問題 和巨大價值的非洲。 我支持第二種選擇,而且我確信我們大多數人都是這樣想的。 關鍵是推展一個非洲人面對非洲的正向態度。
That's because we Africans concentrate -- I am from Ethiopia, by the way -- we concentrate too much on how we are seen from elsewhere, or from outside. I think it's important to promote in a more positive way on how we see ourselves. That's what I call positive African attitude. So finally, I would like to say, so let's help Africa walk upright and forward, then we all can be proud of our future legacy as a species.
因為我們非洲人關注------- 順道一提,我是來自依索比亞------- 我們太關注於我們所看到的別人 那來自於四周或外來的別人。 我認為重要的是扭推展一種更正向的態度 來看待我們自己。 這就是我所說的非洲人----正向的非洲人精神。 最后,我想說的是, 請一起幫助非洲站起來,向前邁進----- 那時,我們作為同一個物種,我們都會為我們留給未來的遺產而驕傲。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)