这个头骨不是真的，但它可能是我们的祖先

In the story of our species, Africa is known as the cradle of humanity. Somewhere on this vast continent, hundreds of thousands of years ago, a group of early humans is thought to have diverged from the others, ultimately spreading across Africa and the rest of the world.

在我们人类的故事中，非洲被称为人类的摇篮。在这片广袤的大陆上的某处，几十万年前，一群早期人类被认为已经与其他人类分道扬镳，最终蔓延到非洲和世界其他地方。

These were the first ancestors of modern humans, but the thing is, no one knows who they were or in what region they were located. At the time, there were several human species living in Africa, and what we currently know about these early humans comes almost exclusively from fossils, which are rare and fragmented.

他们是现代人类的第一代祖先，但问题是，没有人知道他们是谁，也不知道他们在哪个地区。当时，有几个人类物种生活在非洲，我们目前对这些早期人类的了解几乎完全来自化石，这些化石非常罕见，而且支离破碎。

For years, scientists have hotly debated which early humans were related to us and which simply died out on a parallel evolutionary branch.

多年来，科学家们一直在激烈地争论，哪些早期人类与我们有亲缘关系，哪些只是在平行进化分支上灭绝了。

(Aurélien Mounier/CNRS-MNHN)

Instead of waiting for a new specimen to clear things up, scientists have now taken a stab at re-creating a fossil not yet found, the oldest of all Homo sapiens,an elusive ancestor that might have lived in Africa some 300,000 years ago.

现在，科学家们不再等待一个新的标本来理清头绪，而是尝试重新创造一个尚未发现的化石，这是所有智人中最古老的，一个难以捉摸的祖先，可能在30万年前生活在非洲

Using computers and mathematical techniques, the team has virtually rendered a skull with surprisingly slender and modern features. The high forehead, flat face and a rounded skull are reminiscent of living humans, the authors say, while the projected brow-ridge and wide-set eyes are more similar to archaic hominins.

利用计算机和数学技术，研究小组实际上已经绘制出了一个具有惊人的细长的、现代特征的头骨。作者说，高高的前额、扁平的脸和圆圆的头骨让人想起了活着的人类，而突出的眉脊和宽阔的眼睛则更像古代的人类。

It's true such a skull may have never existed. But the authors say it's a tentative prediction of what the last common ancestor of modern humans might have looked like.

的确，这样的头骨可能从未存在过。但作者说，这是对现代人类最后一个共同祖先的初步预测。

The model is based on a range of data: the analysis of several extinct human relatives from the Late Middle Pleistocene (LMP), including Neanderthals; CT scans from the skulls of 260 people from all over the world; and a set of early modern skulls from Israel, dating back 100,000 years.

该模型基于一系列数据:对中更新世晚期(LMP)包括尼安德特人在内的几个灭绝的人类近亲的分析;来自世界各地260人头骨的CT扫描;一组来自以色列的早期现代头骨，可以追溯到10万年前。

Organising these skulls into an evolutionary tree, the researchers noticed not one, but three different populations of early humans living in Africa during the LMP.

将这些头骨组织成一棵进化树，研究人员注意到在LMP期间，生活在非洲的不是一个，而是三个不同的早期人类群体。

(Aurélien Mounier/CNRS-MNHN)

A fossil from Morocco represented one population, while another in Tanzania showed different features. Two more fossils from East Africa and one from South Africa revealed a third population, and it was this group that most closely resembled the new virtually-reconstructed skull.

一块来自摩洛哥的化石代表了一个种群，而另一块来自坦桑尼亚的化石则显示了不同的特征。另外两块来自东非的化石和一块来自南非的化石揭示了第三种人种，而正是这组化石最接近新的虚拟重建头骨。

As such, the authors speculate that the earliest common ancestor of modern humans might have arisen from inter-mixing between the South- and East-African populations. Meanwhile, the North-African populations probably interacted with Neanderthals during this time.

因此，作者推测，现代人最早的共同祖先可能来自于南非人和东非人的混合。与此同时，北非人很可能在这段时间与尼安德特人发生了互动。

In other words, the 'cradle' of civilisation might not be confined to one simple spot; our origin story might be more diverse and complex than all that.

换言之，文明的“摇篮”可能并不局限于一个简单的地方;我们的起源故事可能比这一切更加多样和复杂。

"Our results support a complex process for the evolution of H. sapiens, with the recognition of different, geographically localised, populations and lineages in Africa – not all of which contributed to our species' origin," the authors conclude.

作者总结说：“我们的研究结果支持了智人进化的一个复杂过程，因为我们认识到了非洲不同的、地理位置不同的种群和世系——并非所有这些都促成了我们物种的起源。”