ATLANTA — WHEN I learned last week about the discovery of an early human relative deep in a cave in South Africa, I had many questions. Obviously, they had dug up a fellow primate, but of what kind?

亚特兰大——上周获悉在南非一个洞穴的深处发现了早期人类的亲属时，我有很多疑问。显然，他们又挖出了一种灵长目动物，但属于哪一类呢？

The fabulous find, named Homo naledi, has rightly been celebrated for both the number of fossils and their completeness. It has australopithecine-like hips and an ape-size brain, yet its feet and teeth are typical of the genus Homo.

凭借化石的数量和它们的完整性，被称作“纳勒迪人”(Homo naledi)的这个惊人发现的确应该庆祝。它的髋部像南方古猿，大脑体积和猿类的相当，但脚和牙齿却表现出了典型的人属特点。

The mixed features of these prehistoric remains upset the received human origin story, according to which bipedalism ushered in technology, dietary change and high intelligence. Part of the new species’ physique lags behind this scenario, while another part is ahead. It is aptly called a mosaic species.

这些史前骨骸表现出的复杂特征，搅乱了公认的人类起源理论。根据该理论，人类变成两条腿独立行走后迎来了技术、饮食变化和高智商。但这个新物种的身体部分停留在这一幕发生之前，另一部分却已经进化到了这一幕发生之后。叫它组合物种挺恰当的。

We like the new better than the old, though, and treat every fossil as if it must fit somewhere on a timeline leading to the crown of creation. Chris Stringer, a prominent British paleoanthropologist who was not involved in the study, told BBC News: “What we are seeing is more and more species of creatures that suggests that nature was experimenting with how to evolve humans, thus giving rise to several different types of humanlike creatures originating in parallel in different parts of Africa.”

但我们往往喜新厌旧，对待每一块化石都像是它必须要符合人类进化历程中的某个节点。未参与该研究的英国著名古人类学家克里斯·斯特林格(Chris Stringer)对BBC新闻(BBC News)表示：“我们看到，越来越多的动物物种表明，大自然是在尝试各种人类进化的方式，因而产生了几种不同类型的像人一样的动物，它们同时发源于非洲的不同地区。”

This represents a shockingly teleological view, as if natural selection is seeking certain outcomes, which it is not. It doesn’t do so any more than a river seeks to reach the ocean.

这就有了一种惊人的目的论色彩，仿佛自然选择是在追求某些结果。但其实不是这样。它和河流想要注入大海没什么不同。

News reports spoke of a “new ancestor,” even a “new human species,” assuming a ladder heading our way, whereas what we are actually facing when we investigate our ancestry is a tangle of branches. There is no good reason to put Homo naledi on the branch that produced us. Nor does this make the discovery any less interesting.

新闻报道谈到了“新祖先”，甚至“新人种”，假想出一条向着我们延伸的梯子，但在调查自己的起源时，我们实际面临的是一堆杂乱的分支。我们没有充分的理由去把“纳勒迪人”放在那个产生了我们的分支上。这丝毫不会减少这项发现的意义。

Every species in our lineage tells us something about ourselves, because the hominoids (humans, apes and everything in between) are genetically extremely tight. We have had far less time to diverge than the members of many other animal families, like the equids (horses, zebras, donkeys) or canids (wolves, dogs, jackals). If it hadn’t been for the human ego, taxonomists would long ago have squeezed all hominoids into a single genus.

人类谱系中的每一个物种，都会让我们更了解自己，因为人猿总科动物（人类、猿类和介于这两之间的一切物种）在基因方面是极为接近的。我们经历的分歧过程远短于很多其他动物科的成员，如马科动物（马、斑马、驴）和犬科动物（狼、狗、豺）。如果不是人类的自我意识，分类学家很久以前就把所有人猿总科动物归为一个属了。

The standard story is that our ancestors first left the apes behind to become australopithecines, which grew more sophisticated and brainier to become us. But what if these stages were genetically mixed up? Some scientists have claimed early hybridization between human and ape DNA. Did our ancestors, after having split off, keep returning to the apes in the same way that today’s grizzlies and polar bears still interbreed occasionally?

标准的说法是，我们的祖先先是从猿进化成了南方古猿，后来又变得更加复杂和聪明，最终变成了我们现在的样子。但如果这些阶段在基因上是混在一起的怎么办？一些科学家已经声称发现了早期的人猿DNA混合。脱离了猿后，我们的祖先是不断回到猿那里去，就像灰熊和北极熊至今还偶尔会杂交繁殖那样？

Instead of looking forward to a glorious future, our lineage may have remained addicted to the hairy embrace of its progenitors. Other scientists, however, keep sex out of it and speak of incomplete lineage separation. Either way, our heritages are closely intertwined.

我们的谱系没有憧憬美好未来，反而对祖先那毛茸茸的怀抱恋恋不舍。然而，其他一些科学家将性排除在外，转而说起了谱系划分的不完整。不管怎样，我们遗传下来的东西都是密切交织在一起的。

The problem is that we keep assuming that there is a point at which we became human. This is about as unlikely as there being a precise wavelength at which the color spectrum turns from orange into red. The typical proposition of how this happened is that of a mental breakthrough — a miraculous spark — that made us radically different. But if we have learned anything from more than 50 years of research on chimpanzees and other intelligent animals, it is that the wall between human and animal cognition is like a Swiss cheese.

问题是，我们一直假定自己是从某一时刻起开始成为人类的。但要找到这个点，就如同在光谱中找到从桔色变成红色的那个精确的波长，是不太可能的事。关于这种转变，有一种典型的理论，即是一种智力上的突破——灵光一闪的奇迹——使我们骤然改变。但以我们对黑猩猩和其他高智商动物进行的50多年的研究，至少有一个收获是，人的认知和动物的认知之间那堵墙，就像是一块瑞士奶酪。

Apart from our language capacity, no uniqueness claim has survived unmodified for more than a decade since it was made. You name it — tool use, tool making, culture, food sharing, theory of mind, planning, empathy, inferential reasoning — it has all been observed in wild primates or, better yet, many of these capacities have been demonstrated in carefully controlled experiments.

除了语言能力，没有哪个声称人类独具某项技能的论断会在提出十年后依然坚挺。你能想到的所有技能——使用工具、制造工具、形成文化、分享食物、心智理论、计划、共情、推理——都已经在野生灵长目动物身上观察到。更进一步，许多还可以在严格控制的动物实验中演示出来。

We know, for example, that apes plan ahead. They carry tools over long distances to places where they use them, sometimes up to five different sticks and twigs to raid a bee nest or probe for underground ants. In the lab, they fabricate tools in anticipation of future use. Animals think without words, as do we most of the time.

比如，我们知道猿类可以提前做计划。它们会携带工具长途跋涉到需要使用这些工具的地方，有时它们会用多达五种棍子和枝条来对付一个蜂巢，或翻找地下的蚂蚁。在实验室里，它们会制造工具以备将来使用。动物会不经由语言思考，就像我们大多数时候那样。

Undeterred by Homo naledi’s relatively small brain, however, the research team sought to stress its humanity by pointing at the bodies in the cave. But if taking this tack implies that only humans mourn their dead, the distinction with apes is being drawn far too sharply.

不过，“纳勒迪人”的大脑体积较小并未让研究团队退缩，他们转而通过指出尸体放在洞穴内来突出它们人性的一面。但如果用这一点来表示只有人类才会哀悼死者，那我们就把自己和猿类的差别划分得太清晰了。

Apes appear to be deeply affected by the loss of others to the point of going totally silent, seeking comfort from bystanders and going into a funk during which they don’t eat for days. They may not inter their dead, but they do seem to understand death’s irreversibility. After having stared for a long time at a lifeless companion — sometimes grooming or trying to revive him or her — apes move on.

猿类表现出会因为同伴死亡而深受影响，以至于完全陷入沉默，从旁观者那里寻求安慰，或陷入数天不吃东西的逃避状态。它们可能不会埋葬死去的同类，但它们似乎的确知道死了就不能再复生。长久地盯着死去的同伴——有时会给它们整理皮毛或试图让它们复活——之后，猿类会离开。

Since they never stay in one place for long, they have no reason to cover or bury a corpse. Were they to live in a cave or settlement, however, they might notice that carrion attracts scavengers, some of which are formidable predators, like hyenas. It would absolutely not exceed the ape’s mental capacity to solve this problem by either covering odorous corpses or moving them out of the way.

因为不会长久待在同一个地方，所以它们没有理由掩盖或埋葬尸体。但如果是生活在一个洞穴里或在一个定居点，它们可能会注意到，尸体的腐肉会吸引食腐动物，有些还是难以对付的捕食者，比如鬣狗。猿类绝对有足够的智能来解决这个问题，要么把腐臭的尸体掩盖起来，要么把它们移到偏僻的地方。

The suggestion by some scholars that this requires belief in an afterlife is pure speculation. We simply don’t know if Homo naledi buried corpses with care and concern or unceremoniously dumped them into a faraway cave to get rid of them.

有些学者认为做出这样的行为需要它们具备来生的观念，这纯粹是猜测。我们根本不知道，“纳勒迪人”是以关切的心态埋葬尸体，还是粗暴地将它们抛入偏远洞穴处理掉。

It is an odd coincidence that “naledi” is an anagram of “denial.” We are trying way too hard to deny that we are modified apes. The discovery of these fossils is a major paleontological breakthrough. Why not seize this moment to overcome our anthropocentrism and recognize the fuzziness of the distinctions within our extended family? We are one rich collection of mosaics, not only genetically and anatomically, but also mentally.

纳勒迪(naledi)和否定(denial)这两个词，字母相同，排序有异，这是一个诡异的巧合。我们花了太大的力气来否认自己是经过改变的猿类。发现这些化石的确是古生物学上的重大突破。为何不利用这次机会来超越人类中心说，承认我们所属的大家庭里各个成员的界限并没有那么分明？我们是一个组成非常丰富的群体，不仅从基因和解剖学上讲如此，在心智上也是如此。