評論
打印
Of course today I am actually standing on a beach, but the coast 500,000-600,000 years ago would've been several miles further out. And if you'd walked along that ancient coastline, you would have arrived in what nowadays we call The Netherlands, in the heart of central Europe.
當然如今這里已經成為海灘，然后遠在很多很多以前，海岸線還要向前延伸出幾英里遠。假如你沿著這此古老的海岸線走下去，你將會最終抵達如今我們稱之為荷蘭的地區，歐洲中部的心臟地位。
At this time there was a major land bridge connecting Britain to mainland Europe. We don't really know why humans colonised Britain at this time, but perhaps it was due to the effectiveness of this new technology that we call the handaxe.'
在當時，英國與歐洲大陸之間有一條主要的大陸橋連接著。我們真不知道人類當時為什么在英國土地上生息繁衍，然而大概也是因為手斧這種有效的新興技術吧。”
The stone handaxe was made essentially in the same way and in the same shape for over a million years, and it must be the most successful piece of human technology in history. But is there one last secret in the stone? Our handaxe is just a bit too large to use easily.
本質上而言，在超過一百萬年的時光里，石斧都是按同一種工藝制作，保持同一種形狀，所以它真不亞于人類歷史最最成功的技術成果了。然而這塊石頭中究竟還蘊藏著哪一個終級秘密呢？我們這塊手斧就是個頭有點過大點兒，使用不方便。
Why would you make it like that? I showed it to an expert in ergonomic design, the inventor Sir James Dyson:
但究竟為何要制作成這樣呢？我就些咨詢了一位人體工程學設計上的專家、發明家詹斯·戴森爵士：
What interests me about this is that it's not really very practical. It's double-sided, it has a sharp edge both sides, and it's symmetrical. It's almost as though it's an object of beauty rather than a practical object. So I wonder actually if it's a decorative thing, or even something like a ceremonial sword to make you look brave, powerful, and maybe to pull women.
“讓我頗感興趣的倒是它并不十分實用這一點。它有雙面，兩側邊緣都很鋒利，而且相當對稱。它看上去簡直就像是一件頗俱美感的物品，而不僅僅具有實用性。所以我在思考其實它是否本身是一件裝飾品，甚至像一把象征性很強的劍之類的，能襯托出你的勇氣與力量，或者用來引吸女士的注意力呢。”
'It doesn't look to me like a practical tool, it looks to me more like a show object, a decorative object, than a practical object, because I can only see that whatever I do with it I'm gonna hurt my hand. So I think it's a beautiful object, but I don't believe it has any intent - serious intent - behind it.'
“反正在我看來它不像是一件實用工具，倒像是一樣炫耀品、裝飾品，沒帶多少實用性；因為我能看到無論我怎么使用它，總會弄傷自己的手。因此，我就認為這是一個美麗精致的物品，不過我倒不覺得其身上蘊含著任何特殊的含意。”
Of course it 'is' still a practical object, but I think it's nonetheless worth speculating, as Sir James Dyson does, whether our handaxe 'was' made a bit too big for easy use, in order to show that it was made for somebody important. Are we looking here at one of the oldest of all status symbols; the expression of a social pecking order?
當然，事實上它仍舊是一件實用的物品，但我想它還滿值得認真思考的，正如詹姆斯·戴森爵士那樣說，是否我們這手斧被“制造”得有點過大不便使用，只為了能突顯出它所有人的重要性？我們是否正面對著人類最古老的地位象征物品之一？代表著一個社會的尊卑秩序？
And then the handaxe is so pleasing to the eye as well as to the hand, that it's hard not to ask if it wasn't to some extent made quite intentionally to be a thing of beauty. Is this the beginning of the long story of art and, indeed, the long story of art being pressed into the service of power?
然而這手斧是看上去多么的賞心悅目，拿到手上又多么的玲瓏精致，使得我們不由而然地思考是否在某程度上，它是為了呈現美感而制作的。這是否是人類漫長藝術史的開端呢？
Or are we just projecting back on to these distant ancestors our own ways of thinking about beauty and status?
是否意味著藝術服務于權威的開始呢？又或許我們在一廂情愿地以我們自己對美感與地位的認知，來揣測我們那些遙遠時光的祖先們？
In the next programme we're going to be unquestionably in the realm of art - I'm going to be looking at a masterpiece of Ice Age sculpture, carved in the tusk of a mammoth.
接下來的節目里，我們將毫無疑問地邁進藝術的領域。我將要去尋找一件冰河時期雕刻在猛犸象牙上的不朽杰作。
