纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 003奥杜威手斧（2）（在线收听）

The stone has been chipped to give you sharp edges along the long sides of the tear-drop, so to speak,

这样说吧，沿着泪珠状长长的侧面，石头被打磨得边缘颇为锋利，

and to give you a sharp point at one end. When you hold it up against a human hand, you are struck by how closely it matches the shape,

同时在一个端头给你打磨出尖端。当人类的手握住它时，它的形状与人手之完美匹配，

although this one is unusually large and it is bigger than most human hands would be.

将给你留下深刻的印象；尽管这一块出乎寻常的大，比绝大多数人手大得多。

Its also been very beautifully worked, and you can see the marks of the chipping that have shaped it.

同时，它却是一块鬼斧神工的精品，你可以细细观察那些塑造出它的打磨痕迹。

A handaxe like this was the Swiss Army knife of the Stone Age - an essential piece of technology with multiple uses.

诸如以类的手斧就是石器时代的瑞士军刀，一种多功能多用途的必备良品。

The pointed end could of course be used as a drill, while the long blades on either side would cut trees or meat or scrape bark or skins.

那尖端的一边肯定可以当成钻头，而两边长长的锋利边缘则可以用来伐树割肉，或者刮树皮扒兽皮。

You can imagine using this to butcher an elephant, to cut the hide and remove the meat.

你可以想象一下用它来屠宰一头大象，扒皮卸肉。

The very earliest tools, like the stone chopper we were looking at in the last programme, would strike all of us as pretty rudimentary.

那些最早的工具，如我们上期节目介绍过的石制砍砸器，让我们的感觉是相当之简陋。

They look like chipped cobbles, and they were made simply by taking one large piece of stone and striking it with another,

它们外表看来就像一颗颗稍稍锤击过的鹅卵石，而且它们制作简单，通常就是拿两颗石头互相锤击，

chipping off a few bits to make at least one sharp cutting edge.

至少把一端锤打出一个尖锐的边缘出来。

But this handaxe is a very different matter. This is the expert stone-knapper, Phil Harding:

但是制作这种手斧却完完全全是另一回事了。这是石器专家菲尔·哈丁：

Now you can see, here Ive selected a piece of flint which is relatively long and thin - not a great deal of work to thin it down.

“现在你瞧瞧，这儿呢，我挑了块燧石，比较细长的，要削薄下来工作量并不大。”

And what I do is, I select a hard stone hammer, in this case a quartzite pebble about the size of a cricket ball, and I elect to hit it in one place -

“我要做的就是，选择一块够硬的石锤，这次我选这块是个头有板球大小的石英岩卵石。先挑个地方锤下去，

and this is where I start to knap. Now once Ive taken one flake off, what I do then is turn the flint over and I take a flake off the other side,

接着我就开始从这地方开始凿了。现在呢，一旦我凿下一片碎片，

and then I turn it back again, and pretty much, by the time Ive got all the way round,

我就换边在另一边也凿下一片，如此反复。等我两边都忙完一遍下来，

you can actually see that what Ive done is make a very crude form of the final implement.

你就可以清楚地看见我手中这物品已经轮廓清晰，基本成型了。

It is rounded and its got flaking on both sides but, crucially, its got a cutting edge that goes all the way round.

它是满粗糙的，两边也很多缺口，但关键是它两边延伸下来的边缘都是锋利。”

Simply watching a practised knapper at work shows just how many skills the maker of our handaxe must have possessed.

仅仅观看一个熟手石器专家工作，就想而知我们这把石斧的制造者得拥有多高的技艺了。

Handaxes are not things you knock off; they are the result of experience, of careful planning and of skill, learned and refined over a long period.

石斧可不是你乱凿一通就可以整出来的东西，它们可是经验的成果，凝结着精心设计与高超技艺，这些都得通过一段相当长期的学习与提升。