我们所发现的最古老的故事是关于超自然人物的狩猎

我们所发现的最古老的故事是关于超自然人物的狩猎

Archaeologists working in Indonesia say they have discovered the earliest artwork that depicts a story. It is a tale told in red pigment on a cave wall. The scene, in the scientists' interpretation, shows supernatural people hunting wild animals.

在印度尼西亚工作的考古学家表示，他们发现了最早的描述故事的艺术品。这是一个用红色颜料写在岩壁上的故事。在科学家的解释中，这个场景显示了超自然的人猎杀野生动物。

People living on the island of Sulawesi drew this image of pigs and horned animals as long as 44,000 years ago, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Surrounding the animals are people or human-like figures. This artwork predates the charcoal cave art in Europe by thousands of years.

根据周三发表在《自然》(Nature)杂志上的一项研究，居住在苏拉威西岛(Sulawesi)的人们早在4.4万年前就画出了这幅猪和有角的动物的图像。动物的周围是人或类人的形象。这件艺术品比欧洲的木炭洞穴艺术早了几千年。

Ancient Sulawesi people, like European cave painters, drew lots of wildlife. On the limestone walls, animals loom larger than the other characters, who are nearly as spindly as stick figures. In one section, those figures cluster in front of a buffalo. They appear to face off against the animal. Lines connect their small arms to the buffalo's chest.

古代的苏拉威西岛人，像欧洲洞穴画家一样，画了许多野生动物。在石灰岩的墙壁上，动物比其他人物显得更大，他们几乎和简笔画一样细长。在一个展区，这些人物聚集在一头水牛前面。他们似乎与那只动物对峙。他们的小手臂与水牛的胸部相连。

It's quite amazing. It's a narrative scene, and it's the first time we see that in the rock art, said study author Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia.

这很神奇。澳大利亚格里菲斯大学的考古学家马克西姆·奥伯特是研究报告的作者。

Everything, he said, meaning narration and creative invention, "is there from the beginning."

“一切，”他说，意思是叙述和创造性发明，“从一开始就在那里。”

The large horned animals scrawled on the walls are anoa, a species of water buffalo found only on Sulawesi. Anoa are about the size of large dogs, but what they lack in stature they make up for in aggressive tempers.

墙上潦草的大角动物是anoa，一种仅在苏拉威西岛发现的水牛。Anoa的体型和大型犬差不多，但它们的攻击性却弥补了体型上的不足。

The characters in the scene appear to be hunting or, perhaps, wrangling one of the buffalo, Aubert said.

奥伯特说，场景中的人物看起来像是在打猎，或者可能是在和一头水牛争吵。