印度尼西亚洞穴壁画，可能是世界上“最古老的故事”

考古学家说，印度尼西亚洞穴壁画，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.

一项发表在《自然》杂志上的新研究称，在印度尼西亚发现的一幅洞穴壁画描绘了猎人和他们的猎物，这可能是世界上“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.

研究人员称，距今近4.4万年前的旧石器时代艺术作品证明，史前人类的创造力可能比以前想象的更强。

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

澳大利亚格里菲斯大学考古学家马克西姆·奥伯特是这项研究的主要作者。

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.

事实上，新的碳年代测定法确定这幅壁画有43,900年的历史，使它成为“世界上讲故事的最古老的图画记录和最早的形象艺术作品。”

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.

这幅13英尺高、布满斑点的壁画，最初是在2017年被印度尼西亚苏拉威西岛的一位洞穴探险者偶然发现的，它描绘了两只猪、四只水牛和8个2到4英寸高的人形雕像，有人挥舞着类似绳子或长矛的东西。

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，欧洲被认为是岩石艺术的诞生地，加拿大维多利亚大学的考古学家April Nowell告诉国家地理杂志。然而，这一最新发现——以及在婆罗洲发现的另一幅4万年前的“具象”壁画——表明东南亚可能是真正的洞穴壁画圣地。

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，狩猎肖像是人类创造力的一个重要里程碑。研究人员在研究报告中写道:“虚构故事的能力可能是人类语言进化史和现代认知模式发展的最后、也是最关键的阶段。”

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.

研究人员称，一些人形动物长着像鸟一样的喙和尾巴——很像希腊神话中的杂交动物——这一事实也证明了它们具有令人难以置信的抽象思维能力。