Surprising new insights into the minds of this extinct human species suggest they may have been far more cultured than their outdated brutish reputation once suggested. But getting into the minds of a long-dead species is no easy task.

驚人的新發(fā)現(xiàn)揭示了這種已經(jīng)滅絕的人類物種的思維可能比他們一度被認為的落后和野蠻的聲譽要高得多。但是，理解一種已經(jīng)死亡的物種的思維并不容易。

sometime between 135,000-50,000 years ago, hands slick with animal blood carried more than 35 huge horned heads into a small, dark, winding cave. Tiny fires were lit amidst a boulder-jumbled floor, and the flame-illuminated chamber echoed to dull pounding, cracking and squelching sounds as the skulls of bison, wild cattle, red deer and rhinoceros were smashed open.

大約在13.5萬到5萬年前的某個時候，滿是動物血的手將35個以上的巨大有角頭顱帶進了一個又小、又暗、又彎曲的洞穴。在巖石堆積的地面上點燃了小小的火堆，火光照亮的空間回響著沉悶的敲擊聲、破裂聲和咔嚓聲，因為野牛、野牛、紅鹿和犀牛的頭骨被砸開了。

This isn't the gory beginning of an ice age horror novel, but the setting for a fascinating Neanderthal mystery. At the start of 2023 researchers announced that a Spanish archaeological site known as Cueva Des-Cubierta (a play on "uncover" and "discover") held an unusually large number of big-game skulls. All were fragmented but their horns or antlers were relatively intact, and some were found near to traces of hearths.

這不是一部冰河時代恐怖小說的血腥開始，而是一個有趣的尼安德特謎團的背景。2023年初，研究人員宣布西班牙考古遺址Cueva Des-Cubierta擁有異常大量的大型狩獵動物頭骨。所有頭骨都被碎裂，但它們的角或鹿茸相對完整，有些還發(fā)現(xiàn)在爐灶的痕跡附近。（Cueva Des-Cubierta是一座位于西班牙格拉納達省的洞穴，是一個著名的旅游景點。它有一個長約4公里的地下迷宮，里面有許多石鐘乳石和地下河流。）

While caves in the upper Lozoya Valley, about an hour's drive north of Madrid, had been known about since the 19th Century, the Des-Cubierta site was only found in 2009 during investigation of other cavities on the hillside. As researchers slowly uncovered the layers inside, a startling picture of the cave began to emerge. The skulls, they argued, pointed to something beyond the simple detritus of hunting and gathering. Instead, they saw the skulls as symbolic – perhaps even a shrine containing trophies of the chase.

雖然位于馬德里以北一個小時車程的上洛佐亞山谷的洞穴自19世紀以來就已知曉，但Des-Cubierta遺址僅在2009年研究了山坡上的其他洞穴時才被發(fā)現(xiàn)。隨著研究人員緩慢地揭開里面的層，一個驚人的洞穴圖景開始浮現(xiàn)。他們認為，這些頭骨指向了超越簡單的狩獵和采集的廢物的東西。相反，他們將頭骨視為象征 - 也許是一個包含追逐戰(zhàn)利品的神殿。

If correct, it would raise a tantalising prospect – Neanderthals were capable of the kind of complex symbolic concepts and behaviours that characterise our own species.

如果正確，這將提出一個令人垂涎的前景 - 尼安德特人能夠像我們自己的物種一樣具有復(fù)雜的象征概念和行為。

But can we really suggest Neanderthals, a hominin species that became extinct around 40,000 years ago, developed rituals centred on the skulls of their prey? Other discoveries highlight varied aspects of their culture, and some have even suggested Neanderthals produced forms of what we might call art. But the answers are far from clear.

但我們真的可以認為，已經(jīng)在大約4萬年前滅絕的古人類物種尼安德特人發(fā)展了以獵物頭骨為中心的儀式嗎？其他發(fā)現(xiàn)突出了他們文化的各個方面，甚至有人認為尼安德特人生產(chǎn)了我們可能稱之為藝術(shù)的形式。但答案遠非明確。


Getting into the minds of ancient people, never mind those of a different kind of human altogether, is one of the great challenges of archaeology. Ever since the first Neanderthal remains were identified in the 19th Century, how they lived and what they thought has been a fundamental and evocative question motivating those who study them. Yet despite immense leaps in archaeology over the past 160 years, the answer remains complicated and sometimes problematic, partly because of our own preconceptions.

了解古代人的想法，更不用說完全不同種類的人類，是考古學(xué)面臨的一項巨大挑戰(zhàn)。自從19世紀第一個尼安德特人遺骸被確認以來，他們的生活方式和思想一直是研究他們的人們最基本和最具感染力的問題之一。然而，盡管過去160年考古學(xué)取得了巨大的飛躍，但答案仍然復(fù)雜且有時存在問題，部分原因是因為我們自己的先入為主。

Neanderthals have always represented a philosophical foil to Homo sapiens – that is, to us. Initially they were the only other sort of human that we knew had existed on Earth, and even as other ancient hominin species have been discovered, they retained a special place as "the other", a kind of mirror with which to compare ourselves.

尼安德特人一直是智人的對手。最初，他們是我們所知道的地球上存在的唯一其他類型的人類，即使其他古代人種被發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們?nèi)匀槐３种捌渌钡奶厥獾匚?，一種與我們相比較的鏡子。

And those comparisons initially were all in our favour. The fact that Neanderthals disappeared around 40,000 years ago, after surviving for hundreds of millennia in western Eurasia, was long taken as evidence that there must have been something to explain why they "deserved" their extinction (in a scientific if not a moral sense). Consciously or not, researchers looked for evidence that Neanderthals were less successful, a beta-version of humanity destined to be replaced by our superior form. And one of the most obvious elements they focused on reflected the very thing which we believed distinguished our species from all other life on Earth: cognition.

最初的比較都是對我們有利的。尼安德特人在歐亞大陸西部生存了數(shù)百萬年后，在大約4萬年前消失，這一事實長期被視為證據(jù)，說明必須有某些原因來解釋他們“應(yīng)該”滅絕（在科學(xué)上，而不是道德上）。無論有意識還是無意識，研究人員都在尋找證據(jù)，證明尼安德特人不太成功，是人類的測試版，注定要被我們更優(yōu)秀的形式所取代。他們關(guān)注的最明顯的一個元素反映了我們所認為的將我們的物種與地球上所有其他生命區(qū)分開來的東西：認知。

What is cognition? In simple terms, it's how we think – our mental processes and abilities, from working out problems to our imagination. It also includes imbuing symbolic meaning in actions, obxts or places.

認知是什么？簡單來說，它是我們的思考方式-我們的思維過程和能力，從解決問題到我們的想象力。它還包括賦予行動、物體或地點符號意義。

If the research team excavating at Des-Cubierta are right, then it appears Neanderthals were capable of at least some of these higher forms of cognition.

如果在Des-Cubierta挖掘的研究團隊是正確的，那么看起來尼安德特人至少能夠進行一些這些更高層次的認知。

Of course, Neanderthals aren't here to ask what they're thinking, and we can't travel back into the past to observe them. What we do have, however, is 21st Century archaeology and modern science to help us reconstruct as much as possible about Neanderthal life.

當(dāng)然，尼安德特人不在這里，我們無法詢問他們在想什么，我們也無法穿越到過去觀察他們。然而，我們所擁有的是21世紀的考古學(xué)和現(xiàn)代科學(xué)，以幫助我們盡可能地重建尼安德特人的生活。

To start with the basics, Neanderthals are one of our closest-known relatives, and we last shared a common ancestor somewhere between 550,000 and 800,000 years ago, which is very recent indeed in evolutionary terms. On that basis alone, we should expect Neanderthals in many ways to be very similar to us, including brainpower. Their skulls point to cerebral volumes at least as large as our own.

首先，尼安德特人是我們最親近的親戚之一，我們和他們一個共同的祖先在55萬到80萬年前之間，這在進化的時間尺度上非常近。僅僅基于這一點，我們應(yīng)該期望在許多方面尼安德特人與我們非常相似，包括大腦能力。他們的頭骨指向腦容量至少與我們自己一樣大。

But there's more to minds than brain size. While big, Neanderthal brains were apparently a bit different. Their overall shape – inferred from the inner form of their skulls – was different. This this might, therefore, mean potentially varied brain function due to how different regions of the brain seem lixed to particular functions, such as analytical thought or memory.

但是，思維不僅僅與大腦大小有關(guān)。盡管尼安德特人的大腦很大，但它們顯然有些不同。從他們頭骨內(nèi)部形狀推斷出來的整體形狀是不同的。因此，這可能意味著由于大腦不同區(qū)域似乎與特定功能（如分析思維或記憶）相關(guān)聯(lián)，因此可能存在不同的大腦功能。

From stone and even glue technology to hunting skills, bit by bit as we found out more about them, the gaps between our species have narrowed
We can also find clues at the genetic level. For example, recent research has found that tiny changes in two genes involved in neurological development have marked impacts on the human brain. One, called NOVA1, affects how neurons grow and their electrical activity, while another, TKTL1, appears to significantly increase the amount of neurons and how many folds the brain has. Neanderthals carried slightly different versions of these genes. When researchers inserted a Neanderthal NOVA1 gene into human stem cells to grow so-called "mini-brains" – in reality, clumps of differentiated cells – they found it led to altered neuron growth and the connections between them when compared with our own species. Similarly, the Neanderthal version of TKTL1 – which differed from our own by a single amino acid – may have led them to have a smaller neocortex than modern humans. This is the part of the brain involved in higher cognitive brain functions such as reasoning and language. However, some researchers have suggested that millions of modern humans may also carry the "Neanderthal version" of this gene, raising further questions about how different the brains of these extinct relatives really were.

從石頭甚至膠水技術(shù)到狩獵技能，隨著我們對它們的了解越來越多，我們的物種之間的差距已經(jīng)縮小了。我們還可以在基因水平上找到線索。例如，最近的研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，神經(jīng)發(fā)育中涉及的兩個基因的微小變化對人類大腦有顯著影響。其中之一稱為NOVA1，影響神經(jīng)元的生長和電活動，而另一個TKTL1則似乎顯著增加了神經(jīng)元數(shù)量和大腦折疊的數(shù)量。尼安德特人攜帶了這些基因稍微不同的版本。當(dāng)研究人員將尼安德特人的NOVA1基因插入人類干細胞中生長所謂的“小腦”時，實際上是分化細胞的塊，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)，與我們自己的物種相比，它導(dǎo)致了神經(jīng)元生長和它們之間的連接的改變。同樣，TKTL1的尼安德特人版本——與我們自己的版本相比僅有一種氨基酸的差異——可能使他們的新皮質(zhì)比現(xiàn)代人類小。這是大腦中涉及推理和語言等高級認知大腦功能的部分。然而，一些研究人員已經(jīng)提出，數(shù)百萬現(xiàn)代人可能也攜帶這個基因的“尼安德特版本”，進一步引發(fā)了關(guān)于這些已滅絕親戚的大腦有多不同的問題。

Bones and DNA are only one way to explore what Neanderthal minds were really like. For example, recent research on their hearing has backed up the idea that Neanderthals were communicating vocally in their everyday lives. And it is archaeology, the nearest thing to a time machine, that can show us what they actually did, and therefore what they were probably talking about. Advances in archaeology over the past three decades have produced something of a renaissance in what we know, inexorably undermining preconceptions that Neanderthals were somehow lacking. From stone and even glue technology to hunting skills, bit by bit as we found out more about them, the gaps between our species have narrowed. Today there are relatively few areas that remain as clear differences.

骨骼和DNA只是探索尼安德特人思維真正本質(zhì)的一種方式。例如，他們的聽力最近的研究支持了尼安德特人在日常生活中通過語音進行交流的想法。而考古學(xué)是最接近時光機的事物，它可以展示他們實際上做了什么，因此可以推斷他們可能在談?wù)撌裁?。過去三十年考古學(xué)的進步已經(jīng)產(chǎn)生了我們所知道的一些復(fù)興，不可避免地削弱了尼安德特人缺乏某些方面的觀念。從石頭甚至膠水技術(shù)到狩獵技能，隨著我們對它們的了解越來越多，我們的物種之間的差距已經(jīng)縮小了。今天，還有相對較少的領(lǐng)域存在明顯的差異。

One facet of behaviour where researchers have long looked for differences is the Neanderthals' capacity for abstract, aesthetic and symbolic thought. We have known since the middle of the 19th Century that ancient humans who lived very shortly after the Neanderthals had vanished were producing spectacular paintings of animals inside caves, finely carved figurines, and they also buried their dead with grave goods like shell beads. Despite more than a century of archaeological discoveries, we have not yet found anything truly comparable amongst Neanderthals. What has been uncovered, however, suggests their lives went beyond a simple, survival-based perspective.

研究人員長期以來一直在尋找尼安德特人抽象、審美和象征思維能力方面的差異。自19世紀中葉以來，我們已經(jīng)知道，生活在尼安德特人消失后不久的古代人類正在洞穴內(nèi)繪制動物壯觀的畫作，精美的雕刻人像，并且他們還將死者埋葬在帶有貝殼珠寶等物品的墓穴中。盡管考古學(xué)發(fā)現(xiàn)已經(jīng)超過一個世紀，但我們尚未在尼安德特人中找到任何真正可比的東西。然而，已經(jīng)被發(fā)現(xiàn)的東西表明，他們的生活超越了簡單的生存觀點。

One example of this is incising or engraving. Although many obxts, mostly bone, have been shown through later microscopic study to have been naturally scratched or gouged, there are a number that clearly were intentionally made. One is from Les Pradelles, France, where a small piece of a hyena's thigh bone was found, bearing a series of nine parallel incisions, each about five millimetres long. It dates to around 70,000 years ago, and careful microscopic study found that the same stone tool was used, with the maker working from left to right, and progressively applying more pressure until the final line, probably because they changed the angle or shifted their hold on the tool. At the base of two of the lines further sets of minute marks had been engraved, likely again with the same tool.

一個例子是刻畫或雕刻。盡管許多物品，主要是骨頭，經(jīng)過后來的顯微鏡研究發(fā)現(xiàn)是自然劃痕或劃痕，但有一些明顯是有意制作的。其中之一來自法國的普拉代勒，發(fā)現(xiàn)了一小塊鬣狗股骨，上面刻有一系列九個平行的劃痕，每個長約五毫米。它的年代可以追溯到大約70,000年前，仔細的顯微鏡研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，使用了同樣的石器，制作者從左到右工作，并逐漸施加更多的壓力，直到最后一條線，可能是因為他們改變了角度或移動了工具的持握。在兩條線的底部，還刻有進一步的微小標(biāo)記，可能再次是用同一種工具刻的。


What the Les Pradelles marks mean is not clear. It has been suggested that they may represent a notation or tally of some kind, but alternative interpretations exist, and there may be an aesthetic motivation here too – the secondary marks are so small that perhaps feeling them might have been as important as seeing.

普拉代勒標(biāo)記的意義不明確。有人認為它們可能代表某種記號或記數(shù)，但也存在其他解釋，這里可能也有審美動機——次要標(biāo)記太小了，也許感覺它們可能與看到它們同樣重要。

So far, the most complex graphic engraving found in a Neanderthal context comes from a German site called Einhornh?hle (Unicorn cave). In this case, the bone is dated to around 51,000 years old, and came from the toe of a Megaloceros (giant deer). In addition to some of its edges being altered, with bone apparently shaved or carved off, one of the curved sides of the bone has 10 individual linear engravings. Four of these run along the base in parallel and are angled diagonally, but the other six are more complex with two sets of three intersecting each other, angled between 92-100 degrees. The effect is a repeating chevron pattern, and while once again assessing any precise meaning is impossible, the Einhornh?hle piece seems less likely to be a simple tally marker.

到目前為止，在尼安德特人的背景下發(fā)現(xiàn)的最復(fù)雜的圖形雕刻來自德國一個名為Einhornh?hle（獨角獸洞穴）的遺址。在這種情況下，骨頭的年齡約為5.1萬年，來自一只巨鹿的腳趾。除了它的一些邊緣被改變，骨頭顯然被刮掉或刻掉，骨頭的一個弧形側(cè)面有10個單獨的線性刻痕。其中4個沿著底座平行運行，并有對角線的角度，但另外6個更復(fù)雜，有兩組3個相互交錯，角度在92-100度之間。其效果是一個重復(fù)的雪佛龍圖案，雖然再次評估任何精確的含義是不可能的，但Einhornh?hle作品似乎不太可能是一個簡單的計數(shù)標(biāo)記。（Einhornh?hle是德國的一個洞穴，位于巴伐利亞州的霍恩斯滕。這個洞穴是一個受歡迎的旅游景點，因其美麗的石鐘乳石和地下河流而聞名。）

Engraved obxts, or in the case of the Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar where a "hashtag" has been etched into a raised section of the stone floor itself, are rare among Neanderthal artefacts. Less than 10 clear examples exist. But there is more abundant evidence that Neanderthals had an interest in colour. Mineral pigments, in colours ranging from black through red, orange, yellow and even white have been found at over 70 sites. In some contexts, there is not only significant amounts, such as the more than 450 pieces of pigment from layers at Pech de l'Azé, in the Dordogne, southern France, but also clear evidence that these pieces were being processed and used. Some show scratching and grinding marks, while others have traces from being rubbed across softer things. Sometimes Neanderthals seem to have even sexted particular mineral outcrops for the intensity of the pigment, and remarkably, also combined and mixed them: red with yellow to produce orange.

在尼安德特人的文物中，刻字的物品，或者在直布羅陀的戈勒姆的山洞中，一個 "標(biāo)簽 "被刻在石頭地板的一個凸起部分，都是非常罕見的。只有不到10個明確的例子。但有更多的證據(jù)表明尼安德特人對顏色有興趣。在70多處遺址中發(fā)現(xiàn)了礦物顏料，其顏色從黑色到紅色、橙色、黃色甚至白色。在某些情況下，不僅有大量的顏料，如法國南部多爾多涅省Pech de l'Azé的450多件顏料，而且還有明確的證據(jù)表明這些顏料正在被加工和使用。有些顯示出刮擦和研磨的痕跡，而其他的則有被摩擦過軟物的痕跡。有時，尼安德特人似乎甚至根據(jù)顏料的強度來選擇特定的礦物露頭，而且值得注意的是，他們還將它們組合和混合：紅色與黃色產(chǎn)生橙色。

While we can only guess what most of the colour was being used for – and one type of black pigment, manganese dioxide, can also act as a chemical firelighter – there are some remarkable discoveries of "painted" obxts. They include an orange mix combined with sparkly iron pyrite (fool's gold) on a shell and red pigment on the outer surface of a small fossil shell. Another mixture of pigment was also found on an eagle's talon, one of eight from Krapina, Croatia. And tantalisingly, there is also some evidence from the collapsed cave of Combe Grenal, near Domme in France's Dordogne, that the Neanderthals who lived there seem to have preferred different colours over time. The pigments found at the site changed through the layers, and while there is no obvious explanation for changes in local mineral source availability, there is a rough correlation with changes in stone tool types, which might point to different cultural traditions in pigment use.

雖然我們只能猜測大部分顏色的用途--有一種黑色顏料，即二氧化錳，也可以作為化學(xué)點火劑--但也有一些引人注目的 "彩繪 "物品的發(fā)現(xiàn)。它們包括在一個貝殼上的橙色混合物與閃光的黃鐵礦（愚人金）相結(jié)合，以及在一個小貝殼化石的外表面的紅色顏料。在一只鷹的爪子上也發(fā)現(xiàn)了另一種混合顏料，這是克羅地亞克拉皮納的八只鷹中的一只。誘人的是，在法國多爾多涅省Domme附近的Combe Grenal坍塌的洞穴中也發(fā)現(xiàn)了一些證據(jù)，生活在那里的尼安德特人似乎隨著時間的推移喜歡不同的顏色。在該遺址發(fā)現(xiàn)的顏料隨著時間的推移發(fā)生了變化，雖然對當(dāng)?shù)氐V物來源的變化沒有明顯的解釋，但與石器類型的變化有大致的關(guān)聯(lián)，這可能表明在顏料使用方面有不同的文化傳統(tǒng)。