?翻譯:Neo審校:郭曉
? By caring for their sick and injured, Neandertals were able to expand into more dangerous environments and pursue more deadly prey. Christopher Intagliata reports. 通過照顧傷病員,尼安德特人得以涉足更危險的環(huán)境,以及獵取更加致命的獵物。?克里斯托弗·因塔利亞塔報道。
? Health care isn't just a benefit of the modern human age. It goes way back. All the way, even, to the Neandertals. 醫(yī)療保健不僅僅是現(xiàn)代人類社會的特殊權(quán)益。它源遠流長,甚至可以追溯到尼安德特人時代。
? "We imagine they would have been cleaning wounds, ressing wounds." Penny Spikins, a paleolithic archaeologist at the University of York in the U.K. "They may have used things like splints when you've got broken limbs. We know they had some forms of painkillers." “我們設(shè)想他們已經(jīng)能夠清理和包扎傷口。”英國約克大學(xué)研究舊石器時代的考古學(xué)家佩妮·斯皮金斯如是說。“當(dāng)有人四肢骨折的時候,他們可能會使用夾板之類的東西。我們知道他們有一些方法來止痛。”
? And they most likely needed them. Because remains of Neandertals show that most individuals seem to have suffered a serious injury at least once. The key detail being that those injuries didn't always kill them. 他們很可能會用到這些止痛方法。因為尼安德特人的遺骸表明大多數(shù)人似乎至少遭受過一次嚴重的傷害。關(guān)鍵細節(jié)是那些受傷并不總是致命的。
? Spikins and her team catalogued more than 30 cases of Neandertals who'd been injured but didn't die of their wounds, to investigate the pattern of health care in premodern humans. And they concluded that health care may have been key to their colonizing extreme environments, and pursuing dangerous prey, like mammoths and woolly rhinos. 斯皮金斯和她的團隊給超過30例曾經(jīng)受傷但并未因此死亡的尼安德特人案例進行了分類,來研究前現(xiàn)代人類的醫(yī)療保健模式。他們得出結(jié)論的是,醫(yī)療保健措施可能是尼安德特人征服極端自然環(huán)境,以及狩獵諸如猛犸象和長毛犀牛這樣危險獵物的關(guān)鍵因素。
? "Health care wasn't just something cultural for Neandertals. It also performed an ecological function. It allowed them to punch above their weight as a predator." “醫(yī)療保健不僅僅是尼安德特人的某種文化,它同時也起到了生態(tài)方面的作用。這讓尼安德特人發(fā)揮出捕食者的能力。”
? Their conclusions are in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews. [Penny Spikins et al., Living to fight another day: The ecological and evolutionary significance of Neanderthal healthcare] 這一結(jié)論發(fā)表在《第四紀科學(xué)評論》(Quaternary Science Reviews)雜志上。
? And the results are one more reminder that Neandertals shared many of the qualities we think of as human. Except, of course, that they never made it out of the Pleistocene. 這一結(jié)論提醒我們尼安德特人的許多特質(zhì)和現(xiàn)代智人有相通之處。當(dāng)然,除了他們沒能活過更新世。