万物简史 第638期:神秘的两足动物(16)

I asked him if he was troubled about the amount of license¹ that was taken in reconstructing the figures. "It's always a problem in making re-creations," he agreed readily enough. "You wouldn't believe how much discussion can go into deciding details like whether Neandertals had eyebrows² or not. It was just the same for the Laetoli figures. We simply can't know the details of what they looked like, but we can convey their size and posture³ and make some reasonable assumptions about their probable appearance. If I had it to do again, I think I might have made them just slightly more apelike and less human. These creatures weren't humans. They were bipedal apes."

我同塔特萨尔在制作这个模型的过程中，他在征得别人认可时是否遇到过麻须。他不假思索地说：“在进行再创作时总免不会遇到这样的问题。你也许不能相信，在确定细节的问题上，比如尼安德特人是否有眉毛，人们也不知进行了多少讨论。莱托里塑像的情况也完全一样。我们根本不知道他们究竟长什么样，但是我们可以揣摩他们的高矮、姿势，并就他们可能具有的外表作出合理推断。如果我重新制作这个模型，我想我会使他们稍微更像猿人一些。他们不是人类，而县两足猿人。”

Until very recently it was assumed that we were descended⁴ from Lucy and the Laetoli creatures, but now many authorities aren't so sure. Although certain physical features (the teeth, for instance) suggest a possible link between us, other parts of the australopithecine anatomy⁵ are more troubling. In their book Extinct Humans, Tattersall and Schwartz point out that the upper portion of the human femur is very like that of the apes but not of the australopithecines; so if Lucy is in a direct line between apes and modern humans, it means we must have adopted an australopithecine femur for a million years or so, then gone back to an ape femur when we moved on to the next phase of our development. They believe, in fact, that not only was Lucy not our ancestor, she wasn't even much of a walker.

直到不久以前，人们都认为，我们是露西和莱托里动物的后代，但是今天许多权威就不那么肯定。尽管某些身体特征（例如牙齿）表明南方古猿和我们之间是有一些联系，可是南方占猿的解剖结构所，显示的其他方面就不尽如此，塔特沙尔和施瓦兹在《灭绝的人类》一书中指出，人类股骨的上半部分与猿十分接近，与南方古猿却相去甚远。因此，如果说露西是猿和现代人类之间的直接家系，那就意味着，我们在大约100万年时间里有着和南方古猿一样的股骨，而在我们接着发展到下一阶段时，我们又重新回复到猿的股骨。他们认为，事实上露西不但不是我们的祖先，而且她恨可能还不会直立行走。

塔特萨尔

"Lucy and her kind did not locomote⁶ in anything like the modern human fashion," insists Tattersall. "Only when these hominids had to travel between arboreal⁷ habitats would they find themselves walking bipedally, ‘forced' to do so by their own anatomies⁸." Johanson doesn't accept this. "Lucy's hips⁹ and the muscular arrangement of her pelvis," he has written, "would have made it as hard for her to climb trees as it is for modern humans."

“露西以及她的同类并不能像现代人类那样行走。”塔特萨尔坚持说，“只有当这些人科动物在两棵树上的栖息地之间来回穿梭时，他们才不得不用两足来行走。由于他们骨骼的结构特点，他们是‘被迫’这么做的。”约翰森不赞同这一说法，他写道：“鉴于露西的臀部和她的骨盆肌肉的生长特点，她爬起树来和现代人类一样困难。”

1 license   

n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许

参考例句：

• The foreign guest has a license on the person.这个外国客人随身携带执照。
• The driver was arrested for having false license plates on his car.司机由于使用假车牌而被捕。

2 eyebrows   

眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Eyebrows stop sweat from coming down into the eyes. 眉毛挡住汗水使其不能流进眼睛。
• His eyebrows project noticeably. 他的眉毛特别突出。

3 posture   

n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势

参考例句：

• The government adopted an uncompromising posture on the issue of independence.政府在独立这一问题上采取了毫不妥协的态度。
• He tore off his coat and assumed a fighting posture.他脱掉上衣，摆出一副打架的架势。

4 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。

5 anatomy   

n.解剖学，解剖；功能，结构，组织

参考例句：

• He found out a great deal about the anatomy of animals.在动物解剖学方面，他有过许多发现。
• The hurricane's anatomy was powerful and complex.对飓风的剖析是一项庞大而复杂的工作。

6 locomote   

v.移动，行动

参考例句：

• They locomote down the alley.他们顺着巷子行进。
• I made out three figures locomoting in the distance.我隐约看出远处有三个人影在移动。

7 arboreal   

adj.树栖的；树的

参考例句：

• Man was evolved from an ancestor that was probably arboreal.人大概是从住在树上的祖先进化而来的。
• Koala is an arboreal Australian marsupial.考拉是一种澳大利亚树栖有袋动物。

8 anatomies   

n.解剖( anatomy的名词复数 )；（详细的）分析；（生物体的）解剖结构；人体

参考例句：

• Man and ape have comparable anatomies. 人类与人猿有类似的构造。 来自互联网

9 hips   

abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的

参考例句：

• She stood with her hands on her hips. 她双手叉腰站着。
• They wiggled their hips to the sound of pop music. 他们随着流行音乐的声音摇晃着臀部。 来自《简明英汉词典》