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Standing atop a small dune deep in the Sahara Desert, a team of scientists stared at a freshly opened grave.
在撒哈拉沙漠深處，一隊科學家站在一座小沙丘上，盯著一座剛打開的墳墓。
Three human skeletons lay on their sides, as though they'd drifted off to sleep in the loose brown sand and never awakened.
三具人類骸骨側躺著，彷佛在松軟的褐色沙子里墜入夢鄉，再也沒有醒來。
It was just before dusk during the last days of an expedition to a place called Gobero, located in Niger's Ténéré desert.
黃昏將至，這是一趟遠征的最后幾天，造訪的地方是格伯托，位于尼日爾的泰內雷沙漠。
Often described as a desert within a desert, the Ténéré is almost completely devoid of rain and defined by monumental seas of shifting sand known as ergs.
經常有人把泰內雷描述成沙漠中的沙漠，這里幾乎完全沒有降雨，主宰地貌的是變動中的巨大沙海，稱為沙質荒漠。
Here the temperature regularly exceeds 120°F, blinding sandstorms can blow in without warning, and Nigerien authorities require a platoon of soldiers to accompany visitors to guard against bandits.
此地氣溫經常超過120華氏度，可以無預警就掀起沙塵暴，而尼日爾當局會要求一排士兵陪同旅客，以防范盜匪。
But this barren landscape also holds one of the world's rarest archaeological sites, a graveyard dating back almost 10,000 years.
但這片荒漠景致也保存了全世界難得一見的考古遺址：一座距今將近1萬年前的墓地。
That morning a college student named Hannah Moots, using a small wooden pick and brush, had begun excavating a skull, its crown barely peeking out of the ground.
那天早上，一名名叫漢娜·莫茲的大學生拿著小型的木制鶴嘴鋤和刷子，開始挖掘一個頭骨，它的頭頂只露出地面一點點。
Working carefully, she'd exposed the eye sockets and jaw and continued down the neck to find the shoulder, then followed the arm to a cluster of finger bones.
她小心處理，讓眼窩和頷骨露出來，繼續沿頸部往下找到肩膀，然后沿著手臂到一串指骨。
But there she stopped: There were too many finger bones for just one body.
但至此她停了下來：只有一具遺體的話，那些指骨太多了。
Paul Sereno, the expedition's leader, joined Moots, and soon they'd uncovered more bones -- many more.
遠征隊的領隊保羅·塞雷諾加入了莫茲的工作，然后他們很快就發現了更多骨頭--很多很多。
Oumarou Idé, a Nigerien archaeologist working nearby, came over to see the progress.
在附近工作的尼日爾考古學家歐烏瑪魯·伊德過來查看進度。
Throughout the afternoon, other members of the team, their skin sunburned and clothes grimed with salt stains, gravitated to the dune.
整個下午，皮膚曬得通紅、衣物因為流汗而沾滿鹽漬的團隊其他成員，都被這座沙丘吸引了過來。
Even some of the soldiers, cradling their rifles, came over to see what was going on.
甚至有幾位土兵抱著步槍跑來看是怎么回事。
Finally, as the light softened and the desert air cooled, a startling picture came fully into view.
最后，等到陽光變得柔和、沙漠空氣涼爽下來時，映入眼簾的是一幅驚人的景象。
The pelvis of one skeleton indicated it was a woman. Facing her were two children. Their teeth gave their ages to be about five and seven years old.
有一副骨骸的骨盆顯示它是女性。面對她的是兩名孩童，他們的牙齒透露出年紀約是五歲和七歲。
The five-year-old was clinging to the older child, holding on with a tiny arm draped across the seven-year-old's neck.
五歲孩子緊抓著大一點的孩子，小小的手臂掛在七歲孩子的脖子上。
The woman's right arm curled under the older child's head. Her left arm reached out and connected with the left hand of the five-year-old in the jumbled mass of finger bones.
女子的右手臂彎曲枕在大孩子的頭部下面。她的左手臂伸出去，與五歲孩子的左手相連，指骨混雜在一起。
"They're holding hands," someone murmured.
“他們牽著手。”有人喃喃說著。
The scene raised many questions: Was this a mother and her children? Who buried them in this tender embrace? And how did they die?
這個場景引發許多問題：這是一位母親和她的孩子嗎？誰把他們以這種溫柔的擁抱姿勢入葬？還有他們是怎么死的？
To have been arranged so precisely, the three would have had to perish at nearly the same time and been posed in these positions before rigor mortis set in.
要安置得這么精準，三個人必須幾乎在同一時間死去，而且要趁尸體開始僵直之前擺好這些姿勢。
Was it a sudden tragedy or some sort of ritual sacrifice?
這是突發的悲劇，還是為了儀式而做的某種犧牲？
No cause of death was apparent—their teeth and bones signaled good health and betrayed no signs of trauma.
無法找到明確的死因，他們的牙齒和骨頭都顯示健康良好，也沒有外傷的跡象。
But without soft tissue to examine, it was impossible to say how three seemingly healthy people died simultaneously.
但沒有軟組織能夠檢驗，就無從得知這三位看似健康的人是以何種方式同時死去。
"Maybe," Sereno said, "they drowned."
“說不定，”塞雷諾說，“他們是溺死的。”
I was among those gathered on that dune in 2006, on assignment for National Geographic.
我也在2006年聚集于沙丘的那群人之中，受到《國家地理》雜志的指派前去探訪。
Nearly two decades later, now with two children of my own, I'm still enthralled by the mystery of that scene.
將近20年后的今天，我自己也有了兩個孩子，那個場景的重重謎團依然令我深深著迷。
But it's just one of many mysteries that have emerged from that place since then.
不過從那以后，那個地方浮現了許多神秘現象，這只是其中之一。
Just as the Ténéré is a desert within a desert, Gobero is a scientific enigma within an enigma, one that has obsessed Sereno, Idé, and many others who continue to glean clues, teasing out a rich picture of a lost world.
就像泰內雷是沙漠中的沙漠，格伯托是科學上的謎中之謎，讓塞雷諾、伊德和許多其他科學家念念不忘，持續采集各種線索，為一個失落的世界拼湊出豐富的圖像。
So when Sereno called in 2022, soon after the pandemic lockdown had lifted, and offered me the chance to go back to Gobero, I said yes.
因此塞雷諾在2022年疫情剛解封之際打電話來問我要不要重返格伯托的時候，我說好。
