“红鹿洞人”遗骨指向神秘近代人种 [联合国媒体]

'Red Deer Cave people' bone points to mysterious species of pre-modern human

“红鹿洞人”遗骨指向神秘近代人种



Artist's reconstruction of a Red Deer Cave man. Credit: Peter Schouten

艺术家重建的红鹿洞人肖像，来源：Peter Schouten

A thigh bone found in China suggests an ancient species of human thought to be long extinct may have survived until as recently as the end of the last Ice Age.

在中国发现的一根大腿骨被认为是远古人类红鹿洞人的遗骨。目前认为红鹿洞人曾长期生存于此，直到后冰河时代结束之前才灭绝。

The 14,000 year old bone—found among the remains of China's enigmatic 'Red Deer Cave people'—has been shown to have features that resemble those of some of the most ancient members of the human genus, (Homo), despite its young age.

这根大腿骨有14000年的历史——发现于中国神秘的“红鹿洞人”生活遗址中——尽管距离现在不是那么遥远，但却展现出了类似某些人属（拉丁文学名：Homo）古老型人类的特征。

The discovery was made by a joint team led by Associate Professor Darren Curnoe from UNSW Australia (The University of New South Wales) and Professor Ji Xueping from the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology (YICRA, China).

这项考古新发现是由澳大利亚新南威尔士大学的Darren Curnoe副教授和云南考古研究所的吉学平教授共同完成的。
Their study is published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

他们的研究成果今天发表在《PLOS ONE》杂志上。

The findings result from a detailed study of the partial femur, which had lain unstudied for more than a quarter of a century in a museum in southeastern Yunnan, following its excavation along with other fossilised remains from Maludong ('Red Deer Cave') in 1989.

该成果在对这块不完整的股骨进行了长达四分之一个世纪的细致研究后得出的，研究地点为中国东南部的一家博物馆。马鹿洞（亦称“红鹿洞”）遗址发掘于1989年，除该大腿骨外还发现了其他化石遗迹。

The investigators found that the thigh bone matched those from species like Homo habilis and early Homo erectus that lived more than 1.5 million years ago but are cautious about its identity.

研究者发现，该大腿骨具备某些生活在150万年前的人种，如能人（拉丁文学名：Homo habilis）和早期直立人（拉丁文学名：Homo erectus）的一些特征，于是进行了缜密的鉴定。

"Its young age suggests the possibility that primitive-looking humans could have survived until very late in our evolution, but we need to careful as it is just one bone," Professor Ji said.

“这块遗骨的历史较短，说明远古形貌的人类极有可能到进化史后期方才灭绝，由于我们仅仅得到这一块遗骨，所以鉴定时需要格外谨慎，”吉教授说。

The discovery is expected to be controversial because, until now, it had been thought that the youngest pre-modern humans on mainland Eurasia—the Neanderthals of Europe and West Asia, and the 'Denisovans' of southern Siberia—died out about 40,000 years ago, soon after modern humans entered the region.

这项考古发现或将在学术界引起争议，因为迄今为止，学界一直认为欧亚大陆上最晚期的近代人类——生活在欧洲和西亚的尼安德特人，以及生活在南西伯利亚的丹尼索瓦人——在40000年前，当现代人类抵达这片区域后不久就灭绝了。



Newly described 14,000 year old pre-modern thigh bone from the Red Deer Cave people of Southwest China. Credit: Darren Curnoe & Ji Xueping在中国西南部新发现的仅有14000年历史的近代人类红鹿洞人的大腿骨。来源：Darren Curnoe & 吉学平

"The new find hints at the possibility a pre-modern species may have overlapped in time with modern humans on mainland East Asia, but the case needs to be built up slowly with more bone discoveries," Associate Professor Curnoe said.

“这项新发现暗示了在西亚大路上，一近代人种生活时间与现代人类有所重合的可能性。不过还需要发现更多的遗骨以逐渐巩固这个学说，” Curnoe副教授说。

Like the primitive species Homo habilis, the Maludong thigh bone is very small; the shaft is narrow, with the outer layer of the shaft (or cortex) very thin; the walls of the shaft are reinforced (or buttressed) in areas of high strain; the femur neck is long; and the place of muscle attachment for the primary flexor muscle of the hip (the lesser trochanter) is very large and faces strongly backwards.

红鹿洞人的大腿骨像其他远古人种的一样短小，例如能人；而且由于骨干的外层（或称骨皮质）很薄，所以骨干细窄；骨干受高应力处的外皮坚固（或称加固）；股骨颈长；髋关节（小转子处）原屈肌附着处面积大且显着后转

Surprisingly, with a reconstructed body mass of about 50 kilograms, the individual was very small by pre-modern and Ice Age human standards.
When the team first announced the discovery of the remains of the Red Deer Cave people from Maludong (Red Deer Cave) in Yunnan Province and Longlin Cave in nearby Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in 2012, it divided the scientific community.

更令人惊奇的是，经复建发现，这个红鹿洞人体重仅为50千克左右，以近代人种和冰河时期人类的一般体重而言是小型个体。这支考古团队于2012年首次公布了其在云南马鹿洞（亦称红鹿洞）中发现的红鹿洞人遗址以及在广西壮族自治区周边发现隆林人遗址，而学术界对该成果的态度则产生了分歧。

At the time, the UNSW-YICRA team speculated the bones could represent an unknown new species, or perhaps a very early and primitive-looking population of modern humans, which had migrated to the region more than a hundred thousand years ago.

当时，这只中澳联合考古队曾猜测遗迹中骸骨可能是属于一个在十万年前迁移至此的未知新种族，或者是现代人类的一种早期远古型。

"We published our findings on the skull bones first because we thought they'd be the most revealing, but we were amazed by our studies of the thigh bone, which showed it to be much more primitive than the skulls seem to be," Professor Ji said.

“我们首先发表了对颅骨的研究成果，因为当时以为颅骨会是最有代表意义的，但万万没想到对这块大腿骨的研究会取得如此惊人的发现，这块大腿骨展现的特征远比颅骨要古老得多，”吉教授说。

The new discovery once again points towards at least some of the bones from Maludong representing a mysterious pre-modern species.The team has suggested in another recent publication that the skull from Longlin Cave is probably a hybrid between modern humans and an unknown archaic group—perhaps even the one represented by the Maludong thigh bone.

这项新的发现再次指出，在马鹿洞中发现的部分骸骨是属于一个神秘的近代人种的。这只考古队发表的另一篇论文中说，在隆林洞中发现的颅骨可能属于一种现代人类与某未知古代种族的杂交人种，而这一未知古代人种或许就是马鹿洞中发现的大腿骨所属的种族。

"The unique environment and climate of southwest China resulting from the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau may have provided a refuge for human diversity, perhaps with pre-modern groups surviving very late," Professor Ji said.

“西藏高原的隆起造成了中国西南部独特的环境与气候，或许正为人类进化的不同种族提供了避难所，很可能使近代人种的存活时间大大延长，”吉教授说。

Associate Professor Curnoe said: "This is exciting because it shows the bones from Maludong, after 25 years of neglect, still have an incredible story to tell. There may have been a diversity of different kinds of human living until very recently in southwest China. "The riddle of the Red Deer Cave people gets even more challenging now: Just who were these mysterious Stone Age people? Why did they survive so late? And why only in tropical southwest China?"

Curnoe副教授说：“没想到尽管在发掘后被搁置了25年，这些遗骨还能为我们讲述一个无以伦比的故事。在中国西南部，可能曾有完全不同的一人类进化分支种族存活，直至非常近代才灭绝。”现在，红鹿洞人变得更加扑朔迷离：这些神秘的石器时代人类究竟是谁？为什么他们能够存活那么久？而且为什么只生活在处于热带的中国西南部？