鱼曾经是撒哈拉沙漠人们的主食

鱼曾经是撒哈拉沙漠人们的主食

Fish might not be top of the menu in the Sahara Desert today, but that’s exactly what its inhabitants were dining on over 10,000 years ago.

在今天的撒哈拉沙漠，鱼可能不是菜单上的首选，但在一万多年前，这里的居民正是以鱼为食。

Archaeologists from the Natural History Museum of Belgium and the Sapienza University of Rome have discovered nearly 18,000 animal bones in a rock shelter known as Takarkori in southwestern Libya. Up to 80 percent of these bones belong to fish, including species like catfish and tilapia, while around 19 percent were mammals, including Barbary sheep, Dorcas gazelle, and rock dassies. The remaining 1.3 percent was made up of bird, reptile, mollusk, and amphibian remains.

比利时自然历史博物馆和罗马大学的考古学家在利比亚西南部一个名为Takarkori的岩石避难所发现了近1.8万具动物骨骼。这些骨头中多达80%属于鱼类，包括鲶鱼和罗非鱼，而大约19%属于哺乳动物，包括巴巴里羊、多卡斯瞪羚和岩羚羊。剩下的1.3%是鸟类、爬行动物、软体动物和两栖动物的遗骸。

Tom Hale

This certainly wasn’t a prehistoric zoo or aquarium either. On many of the skeletal remains, the archaeologists discovered the presence of cut marks and burns, showing the animals had been butchered and cooked.

这当然也不是史前的动物园或水族馆。在许多遗骸上，考古学家发现了切割痕迹和烧伤，表明这些动物是被宰杀和烹饪的。

Reported in the journal PLOS ONE, the bones were dated at between 4,650 to 10,200 years old, placing them in an era known as the early Holocene. Around this time, the Sahara was a very different place. Far from being a desert, this strip of North Africa was lusciously green and alive, covered in lakes and plant life. It only started to become a desert environment around 8,000 years ago due to a combination of human activity and wider environmental factors.

据《公共科学图书馆·综合》杂志报道，这些骨头的年代在4650年到10200年之间，属于全新世早期。大约在这个时候，撒哈拉是一个非常不同的地方。北非的这片土地远非沙漠，而是一片郁郁葱葱的绿色，生机勃勃，到处是湖泊和植物。大约8000年前，由于人类活动和更广泛的环境因素，它才开始变成沙漠环境。

So, given this knowledge, it is perhaps unsurprising that the Sahara’s inhabitants ate a lot of fish. Interestingly, the new research also shows that the amount of fishbone appeared to decline over time. Between 8,000 to 10,200 years ago, fish made up over 90 percent of the bones found at Takarkori, while only accounting for 40 percent of all remains traced to 4,650 to 5,900 years ago.

所以，有了这些知识，撒哈拉居民吃鱼就不足为奇了。有趣的是，新的研究还表明，鱼骨的数量似乎随着时间的推移而减少。在距今8000年至10200年前，Takarkori发现的骨头中90%是鱼，而在距今4650年至5900年前的化石中，鱼只占40%。

Clearly, there was a gradual diet change from fish to livestock. While it’s not totally clear what prompted the diet change, the researchers strongly suspect that it’s associated with the Sahara turning from a luscious land of lakes to an arid bone-dry desert.

很明显，从鱼到牲畜的饮食逐渐发生了变化。虽然还不完全清楚是什么导致了饮食的改变，但研究人员强烈怀疑这与撒哈拉沙漠从一个美丽的湖泊变成干旱的沙漠有关。

“The amount of fish is decreasing through time and the contribution of mammals increases, showing that people at Takarkori focussed gradually more on hunting and livestock keeping. It is unclear if this was an intentional process or if this shift could be related to increasing aridity, which made the environment less favorable for fishes,” the researchers write in their paper.

“随着时间的推移，鱼的数量在减少，而哺乳动物的贡献在增加，这表明高丽的人们越来越重视狩猎和饲养牲畜。”目前还不清楚这是一个有意的过程，还是这种变化可能与日益增加的干旱有关，干旱使环境对鱼类不利，”研究人员在他们的论文中写道。

Fish was often the go-to meal for prehistoric humans. Another study published this month studied the fish-heavy diet of people living in northern Norway during the Stone Age and found it was riddled with dangerous levels of toxic metals.

鱼通常是史前人类的主食。本月发表的另一项研究，研究了石器时代挪威北部居民以鱼类为主的饮食，发现那里的有毒金属含量达到了危险水平。