纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 006巴布亚新几内亚鸟形杵（3）（在线收听）

'I just thought it was beautiful to look at and had a well-honed, worn look, and a patina that made me feel that it was used - and used again and again. It is a fundamental act both of cooking and of living, and living with a family and passing on, at least in India.

“我只觉得它看起来很美丽，打磨精致，有点磨损，古色古香，让我觉得这是一把曾经被反复使用过的舂杵。至少在印度，使用它，会是一种烹饪与生活中最基本的行为，一种代代相代的家庭生活。”

'When I left India, which was a long long time ago, my mother gave me certain utensils to take with me, and they were all heavy, I remember that. There was a wok, a grinding stone, and a huge mortar and pestle, so those are what I left with, and I have all of them, and I use my mortar and pestle to this day.'

“很多很多年前，当我离开印度时，我母亲送给我一些厨具带在身上，我记得它们可真是沉甸甸的呵。有个锅、研磨石，还有研钵跟舂杵。这些就是我离开家时的所有，现在我还保留着，这研钵跟舂杵还在天天使用。”

Other stone pestles and mortars have also been found in New Guinea, and what they show is that there were farmers growing crops in the tropical forests and grasslands here in ancient times, around ten thousand years ago.

其他石杵与研钵也在新几内亚出土，它们显示了一万年前左右，在这些热带森森与草原上，已经出现在人类从事农业劳作、养育庄稼的身影

This relatively recent discovery has upset the conventional view that farming began in the Middle East, in what's called the Fertile Crescent, and from there spread across the world.

相当近期的考古发现挑战了传统观点，认为农业起源于中东一带所谓“新月沃土”的地区，随后向世界各地蔓延。

We now know that in fact this particular bit of the history of humanity happened simultaneously in many different places.

我们现在知道，其实在这段人类历史上的特定时期，这种变化在全球范围内是同步产生的。

Clearly a lot of us became farmers at the same time, and wherever people were farming, they began to concentrate on a small number of plants, selectively harvesting these from the wild, planting and tending them.

显然我们当中相当多的人开始在这时期转换成农民的角色，而且不管人类在何地耕作，他们总是开始把注意力集中到若干类的植物种类上，有选择性地从野外采集回来，种植起来，用心照料。

In the Middle East, they chose particular grasses - early forms of wheat; in China, wild dry rice; in Africa, sorghum - a grain that looks a bit like grass; and in Papua New Guinea, the starchy tuber, taro.

在中东，人类选择了一种特殊的草本植物，以最早期的小麦，在中国的是野生旱稻，在非洲是一种看上去有点像野草的高梁，在巴布亚新几内亚， 是芋头这种淀粉块茎。

For me, the most surprising thing about these new plants is that in their natural state you very often can't eat them at all, or at least they taste pretty filthy if you do. Why would you choose to grow food that you can eat only once it's been soaked or boiled or ground to make it edible at all?

对我而言，最值得惊叹的莫过于，这些新植物在自然状态下其实是不可食用的，至少很难下咽。为何人类会选择种植这种得经过像浸泡、煮沸或研磨后才可以食用的食物呢？

Martin Jones, Professor of Archaeological Science at Cambridge University, sees this alchemy of food as an essential part of human evolution:

剑桥大学考古学教授马丁·琼斯把加工提炼食物看成是人类进化过程中的重要组成部分：

'As the human species expanded across the globe, we had to have a competitive edge over other animals going for the easy food.

“随着人类在全球范围内扩张，我们避免不了在那此唾手可得的食物方面与其他动物进行激烈竞争。