OUR EARLIEST ANCESTORS

我们最早的祖先

2016年2月26日功课

WE know very little about the first ``true'' men. We have never seen their pictures. In the deepest layer of clay of an ancient soil we have sometimes found pieces of their bones. These lay buried amidst the broken skeletons of other animals that have long since disappeared from the face of the earth. Anthropologists (learned scientists who devote their lives to the study of man as a member of the animal kingdom) have taken these bones and they have been able to reconstruct our earliest ancestors with a fair degree of accuracy.

关于第一个“真正的”人类，我们知道的非常少。我们从来没见过它们的图片。在一片古老土地的深层图层下，我们有时发现它们的骨头碎片。它们和其它动物的骨架碎片埋在一起，那些动物已经从地面消失很久了。古人了学家（这些博学的科学家们毕其一生研究人类，将其视为动物之王）取得了他们的骨头，并且它们能够在一定程度上重建我们最早的祖先。

2016年2月27日功课

The great-great-grandfather of the human race was a very ugly and unattractive mammal.He was quite small, much smaller than the people of today.The heat of the sun and the biting wind of the cold winter had coloured his skin a dark brown.

人类的曾曾祖父是一个丑陋的毫无吸引力的哺乳动物。他非常小，比今天的人类小很多。太阳的炙烤与冬季寒风的吹打使它的皮肤变成了深棕色。

His head and most of his body, his arms and legs too, were covered with long, coarse hair. He had very thin but strong fingers which made his hands look like those of a monkey. His forehead was low and his jaw was like the jaw of a wild animal which uses its teeth both as fork and knife. He wore no clothes. He had seen no fire except the flames of the rumbling volcanoes which filled the earth with their smoke and their lava.

他的头部和大部分身体，以及他的胳膊和腿，都覆盖着长长的粗糙的毛发。他长着非常瘦小但强壮的手指，这使他的手看起来像一只猴子的手一样。他的前额很低，下颌像那种把牙齿当作刀叉的野生动物的下颌。他不穿衣服。他没见过火，除了那咆哮的火山的火焰，火山的烟尘和岩浆充满了地球。

2016年2月28日功课

He lived in the damp blackness of vast forests, as the pygmies of Africa do to this very day. When he felt the pangs of hunger he ate raw leavesand the roots of plants or he took the eggs away from an angry bird and fed them to his own young. Once in a while, after a long and patient chase, he would catch a sparrow or a small wild dog or perhaps arabbit. These he would eat raw for he had never discovered that food tasted better when it was cooked.

他居住在阴暗潮湿的大森林里，就像非洲土著那样。当他饿的难受时他吃生树叶和树根，或者从一只愤怒的小鸟哪里抢走鸟蛋来喂他的孩子吃。有时候，经过一个漫长的追逐，他可以逮到一只麻雀或者一条小野狗，也可能是一只兔子。那些他只能生吃，因为他还从未发现食物在烹调后更好吃。

During the hours of day, this primitive human being prowled about looking for things to eat.

一整天，这个原始人都在逡巡着寻找能吃的东西。

2016年2月29日功课

When night descended upon the earth, he hid his wife and his children in a hollow tree or behind some heavy boulders, for he was surrounded on all sides by ferocious animals and when it was dark these animals began to prowl about, looking for something to eat for their mates and their own young, and they liked the taste of human beings. It was a world where you must either eat or be eaten, and life was very unhappy because it was full of fear and misery.

当夜幕突然降临，他把他的妻子和孩子藏在中空的树干里或者大石头后面，因为他被凶猛的野兽在四面八方包围着。天黑时，那些动物开始游荡，为它们的配偶和孩子寻找吃的东西，它们喜欢人肉的味道。那是一个要么吃要么被吃掉的世界，生活相当痛苦，因为充满着恐惧与苦难。

2016年3月1日功课

In summer, man was exposed to the scorching rays of the sun, and during the winter his children would freeze to death in his arms. When such a creature hurt itself, (and hunting animals are forever breaking their bones or spraining their ankles) he had no one to take care of him and he must die a horrible death.

在夏天，原始人暴露在太阳炙热的照射下。在冬季，他的孩子可能冻死在他的臂弯里。当这种温度（以及猎捕动物永久的折断了他们的骨头或者扭伤他们的脚踝）伤害了他自己，没有人照顾他，他必须可怕的死去。

2016年3月2日功课

Like many of the animals who fill the Zoo with their strange noises, early man liked to jabber.That is to say, he endlessly repeated the same unintelligible gibberish because it pleased him to hear the sound of his voice.In due time he learned that he could use this guttural noise to warn his fellow beings whenever danger threatened and he gave certain little shrieks which came to mean ``there is a tiger!'' or ``here come five elephants.'' Then the others grunted something back at him and their growl meant, ``I see them,'' or ``let us run away and hide.'' And this was probably the origin of all language.

就像许多动物用它们奇怪的声音填满整个动物园一样，早期的人类喜欢快而含糊不清的说话。也就是说，他无休止的重复同样的无法理解的乱语，因为他听到自己的声音让他快乐。直到某一刻他意识到他可以用这种喉部声音警告他的同伴，只要危险降临他就发出特定的低声尖叫。尖叫意味着“这里有一只老虎！”或者“这儿来了五头大象。”然后其他人咕哝一些声音应答他，他们的吼声意思是“我看到它们了，”或者“我们逃走吧，躲起来”。这可能是所有语言的起源了。

2016年3月3日功课

But, as I have said before, of these beginnings we know so very little. Early man had no tools and he built himself no houses. He lived and died and left no trace of his existence except a few collar-bones and a few pieces of his skull. These tell us that many thousands of years ago the world was inhabited by certain mammals who were quite different from all the other animals -- who had probably developed from another unknown ape-like animal which had learned to walk on its hind-legs and use its fore-paws as hands -- and who were most probably connected with the creatures who happen to be our own immediate ancestors.

但是，就如我之前说过的那样，关于那些开始的事情，我们知之甚少。原始人没有工具，他也没给自己盖过房子。他生存和死亡没有留下关于他存在过的痕迹，除了少量的锁骨和颅骨碎片。这些东西告诉我们，几千年以前有一种奇特的动物这个世界上生存过。这种动物与世界上其它任何一种动物都大不一样，它可能从一种不知名的像猿一样的动物发展而来。这种猿类曾经学会用后腿行走并把前爪当手使。这种动物最有可能与恰好成为我们直系祖先的那个动物有关联。

It is little enough we know and the rest is darkness.

我们知道的还非常少，其余都是未知。