地中海岛屿上的古代工具可能早于现代人类的出现——这暗示尼安德特人已经具有航海技能。

撰文/播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔（Christopher Intagliata）

翻译：姜帆

校对：张艺箫

The more we learn about Neandertals, the more like us they become. They made jewelry, from shells and eagle talons. They probably painted cave art. They may have buried their dead as well.

我们对尼安德特人的研究的越深入，就越发觉得他们和我们很像。他们用贝壳和鹰爪制作首饰。或许，他们会画洞穴艺术、会埋葬死者。

And now some archaeologists say evidence is mounting for another skill the Neandertals might have shared: the ability to navigate the seas.

现在一些考古学家表示，越来越多的证据显示尼安德特人可能还具有一项技能——航海。

"Maybe that's just part of the human psyche, of wanting to go and explore places, and maybe that extends back further than we would have thought."

“也许想要去探索不同的地方是人类灵魂的一部分，这种灵魂或许能追溯到比我们想象的更早的时间。”

Alan Simmons of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He presented his case at a meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Washington, D.C., first reported in an article by journalist Andrew Lawler in the journal Science. [Alan Simmons, SAA 2018: Aquatic Neanderthals and Paleolithic Seafaring: Myth or Reality? Examples from the Mediterranean]

The case goes like this: hundreds of stone tools have now been found, lodged in ancient soils, on Mediterranean islands like Crete and Naxos. We can't date the tools directly—they’re too old. But Simmons says you can put them into a rough chronology with other tools, based on their sophistication. He compares it to car styles:

拉斯维加斯内华达大学的艾伦·西蒙斯（Alan Simmons）在华盛顿特区的美国考古学会会议上介绍了他的看法，科学杂志的记者安德鲁·劳勒（Andrew Lawler）通过在该杂志上发表的一篇文章首次报道这件事。他的观点是这样的：现在已发现数百种石器，埋藏在地中海岛屿如克里特岛和纳克索斯岛上的古代土壤中，。我们不能直接推算工具的年代——他们太古老了。但西蒙斯说，你可以通过工具的复杂性，将它们和复杂度相当的其他工具一起放入一个粗略的年代表中。他用汽车风格来比喻：

"The tail fins of old Cadillacs, you could seriate those and show this is older than this or more recent than this, but you couldn't put an absolute date on it. That's exactly what we do with typologies and technologies, you know, this is the way these tools were made during a certain time period."

“老凯迪拉克的尾翼，你可以将它们串联起来，并且显示它比这更早或更晚，但是你不能为它加上绝对的日期。我们正是利用类型学和技术方面的信息来确定这些工具被制造的时间段。”

Those clues and other hints—like the fact the stone tools are buried in ancient soils—suggest the implements could date back to the Middle Paleolithic, somewhere between 50[,000] and maybe 200,000 years ago—meaning they could have been made before we Homo sapiens showed up. And therefore, to leave tools on the islands, the toolmakers must have plied the seas.

除此之外还有其他现所——比如石器被埋在古代土壤中的事实——暗示这些器具可以追溯到大约在50000年到20万年前的旧石器时代中期，这意味着这些工具可能是在我们这些智人出现之前就被制造出来了。因此，既然能在岛上留下工具，工具的制造者必定能穿过海洋。

"To me this suggests Neandertals at least had the same cognitive capacities that fully modern people do. ‘Cause you don't just make a boat or a raft or whatever and go out and float around in the ocean. There's a lot of cognition involved. You have to have navigation skills. This has implications for language."

“我认为，这个结论暗示尼安德特人至少具有与现代人完全相同的认知能力。“因为你不是随便制造一艘船，一艘筏或其他什么东西，然后在海上随意漂流。航海的过程会涉及到许多的知识，必须具备导航技能。这暗示了他们有语言能力。”

It's just speculation for now—boat remains are nowhere to be found. But perhaps new digs, and better dates on the tools that have already been uncovered, will strengthen the case. 'Til then: it seems that old stereotype about Neandertals being brutish cave dwellers is already critically endangered. If not extinct.

这只是现在的猜测——船只残骸无处可寻。但是，也许新的挖掘方式，以及对已经发现的工具的更好的推算年代的技术会增加船只残骸北大找到的可能性。‘现在看来：如果不是因为安东尼特人灭绝了的话，他们是古老的穴居人的陈旧观念会受到严重威胁。