万物简史 第631期:神秘的两足动物(9)（在线收听）

Some continue to observe the two hominid genera suggested by Howell in 1960, but others place some of the australopithecines in a separate genus called Paranthropus , and still others add an earlier group called Ardipithecus. Some put praegens into Australopithecus and some into a new classification, Homo antiquus, but most don't recognize praegens as a separate species at all. There is no central authority that rules on these things. The only way a name becomes accepted is by consensus, and there is often very little of that.

有的专家继续按照豪威尔于1960年提出的两大属人科动物来进行研究，但是有的将某些南方古猿单独列属，并冠以傍人属的名称，还有的又增加了一个年代更早的地猿。有的人将praegens归于南方古猿，有的人将其归人新的古人种。但是大多数人根本不承认praegens是一个单独的种。没有任何一个众望所归的权威来统一大家的意见，一个名称为大家所接受的惟一途径是所有人都不持异议，可是这往往很难得以实现。

A big part of the problem, paradoxically, is a shortage of evidence. Since the dawn of time, several billion human (or humanlike) beings have lived, each contributing a little genetic variability to the total human stock. Out of this vast number, the whole of our understanding of human prehistory is based on the remains, often exceedingly fragmentary, of perhaps five thousand individuals. "You could fit it all into the back of a pickup truck if you didn't mind how much you jumbled everything up," Ian Tattersall, the bearded and friendly curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, replied when I asked him the size of the total world archive of hominid and early human bones.

然而在更大的程度上，问题的症结还在于证据的缺乏。这是自相矛盾的。自从人类起源以来，有几十亿人（或类人动物）曾经生活过，每一个都把一点儿不同的基因遗传给整个人类。在数量如此巨大的人类当中，我们对于史前人类的了解凭借的仅仅是5000人左右的往往是极其支离破碎的遗骸。当我问纽约美国自然史博物馆馆员伊恩·塔特萨尔，全世界已发现的有关人科动物和早期人类的化石总量是多少时，这位留着一脸大胡子，待人亲切和善的馆员这样说：“如果你不怕弄得一团槽，你可以把它们通通装在一辆小卡车的后部。”