LookingBackon40YearsofLucy.docVIP

Looking Back on 40 Years of Lucy 回首露西40年 Forty years ago yesterday, November 24, 1974, paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson found in Ethiopia what’s arguably the most famous and important fossil of a human ancestor: Lucy. Last month, at the ScienceWriters2014 meeting in Columbus, Ohio, Johanson talked about the moment he laid eyes on Lucy. 四十年前的昨天，即1974年11月24日，古人类学家唐纳德·约翰逊在埃塞俄比亚发现了可以说是最著名也最重要的人类祖先化石：露西。上个月在俄亥俄州哥伦布市召开的2014科学作家年会上，约翰逊谈到了他第一眼见到“露西”的刻。 “On that eventful day in 1974 I was out, with a graduate student, Tom Gray, and we were walking back to our Land Rover to go back to camp to enjoy a swim in the river with the crocodiles and enjoy a nice little lunch. And I am always looking at the ground. I find more quarters by parking meters than anybody I know, I think. And you know how it is you find what you’re looking for, right? “在1974年那个重大的一天，我跟一个叫汤姆·格雷的研究生在外面。当时我俩正走向我们的座驾兰德·路华，准备回营地在河里跟鳄鱼们一起游个泳，然后美美地吃个午餐。我总是习惯看着地面。我能停车计时器，至少我认为是这样。我想大家都懂得当你发现自己一直想找的东西时的那种感觉” “Because a year before the discovery a geologist had left his footprints four-to-five feet away from the skeleton, because he was looking for rocks. I was looking for bones. And I found a little piece of elbow, that little hinge that allows us to flex and extend our arm. And I knew from my studies of osteology, of comparative anatomy and so on, that this had to be from a human ancestor. “在我有此发现的前一年，一个地质学家因为找岩石，曾到过离该骨架五英尺远的地方。而我去那里是找为了找骨骼。我发现了一小块手肘骨，就是能使手臂弯曲伸展的那个关节点。我从学习骨科学、比较解剖学等科学的经验判断，这块骨头一定人类祖先身上。” “And I as looked up the slope, I saw other fragments eroding out. And we recovered over a two-week-long excavation operation roughly, not counting hand and foot bones, 40 percent of a skeleton. And this was important because first of all it broke the three-million-year time barrier. All the fossils older than three million years at that point in the history of paleoanthropology would fit in the palm of your hand…we didn’t know it was a new species really until a few years later when we finally published in 1978