印度尼西亞洞穴壁畫，可能是世界上“最古老的故事”

考古學家說，印度尼西亞洞穴壁畫，可能是世界上“最古老的故事”

A cave painting of hunters — and their prey — discovered in Indonesia could be the world’s “oldest story,” according to a new study published in the journal Nature.

一項發(fā)表在《自然》雜志上的新研究稱，在印度尼西亞發(fā)現(xiàn)的一幅洞穴壁畫描繪了獵人和他們的獵物，這可能是世界上“最古老的故事”。

Dating back nearly 44,000 years, the Paleolithic artwork proves that prehistoric humans might have been more creatively inclined than once thought, researchers say.

研究人員稱，距今近4.4萬年前的舊石器時代藝術作品證明，史前人類的創(chuàng)造力可能比以前想象的更強。

“It completely changes the picture of our human journey,” head study author Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist at Australia’s Griffith University, tells National Geographic.

澳大利亞格里菲斯大學考古學家馬克西姆·奧伯特是這項研究的主要作者。

Indeed, new carbon dating determined the mural to be 43,900 years old, making it the “the oldest pictorial record of storytelling and the earliest figurative artwork in the world,” say researchers.

事實上，新的碳年代測定法確定這幅壁畫有43,900年的歷史，使它成為“世界上講故事的最古老的圖畫記錄和最早的形象藝術作品。”

Originally stumbled upon in 2017 by a spelunker in Sulawesi, Indonesia, the 13-foot, splotchy mural depicts two pigs, four buffalo and eight 2- to 4-inch humanoid figures. Some are brandishing what resemble ropes or spears.

這幅13英尺高、布滿斑點的壁畫，最初是在2017年被印度尼西亞蘇拉威西島的一位洞穴探險者偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)的，它描繪了兩只豬、四只水牛和8個2到4英寸高的人形雕像，有人揮舞著類似繩子或長矛的東西。

Previously, Europe was thought to be the birthplace of rock art, Canada’s University of Victoria archaeologist April Nowell tells National Geographic. However, this latest discovery — along with another 40,000-year-old “figurative” painting found in Borneo — suggests that Southeast Asia could be the real cave mural mecca.

先前，歐洲被認為是巖石藝術的誕生地，加拿大維多利亞大學的考古學家April Nowell告訴國家地理雜志。然而，這一最新發(fā)現(xiàn)——以及在婆羅洲發(fā)現(xiàn)的另一幅4萬年前的“具象”壁畫——表明東南亞可能是真正的洞穴壁畫圣地。

More importantly, the hunting portrait represents an important milestone in human creativity. The “ability to invent fictional stories may have been the last and most crucial stage in the evolutionary history of human language and the development of modern-like patterns of cognition,” researchers write in the study.

更重要的是，狩獵肖像是人類創(chuàng)造力的一個重要里程碑。研究人員在研究報告中寫道:“虛構故事的能力可能是人類語言進化史和現(xiàn)代認知模式發(fā)展的最后、也是最關鍵的階段。”

The fact that some of the human figures sport bird-like beaks and tails — much like the hybrid creatures of Greek mythology — also demonstrates an incredible knack for abstract thinking, researchers say.

研究人員稱，一些人形動物長著像鳥一樣的喙和尾巴——很像希臘神話中的雜交動物——這一事實也證明了它們具有令人難以置信的抽象思維能力。