科学美国人60秒 人类可能与狼交上了一起吃肉的朋友（在线收听）

How did dogs become humans’ best friend? Well, one idea is that docile wolves flocked to waste dumps near human camps. But there are problems with that idea.

狗是如何成为人类最好的朋友的?有一种观点认为，温顺的狼聚集在人类生活附近的垃圾场。但这种想法存在一些问题。

“Because why would humans tolerate such a dangerous carnivore close to their camping sites?”

“因为人类为什么要容忍这种危险的食肉动物靠近自己的露营地呢?”

Maria Lahtinen is an archaeologist at the Finnish Food Authority and the Natural History Museum in Helsinki.

玛丽亚·拉赫蒂宁是芬兰食品管理局和赫尔辛基自然历史博物馆的考古学家。

She points out that hunter-gatherers living during the time of wolf domestication—14,000 to 29,000 years ago— probably didn’t stay put long enough to create generations’ worth of trash. Writing in the journal Scientific Reports, she and her colleagues present a different hypothesis: that humans purposely shared their leftovers with wolves instead.

她指出，在狼驯化时期(14000年至29000年前)生活的狩猎采集者，很可能没有在一个地方呆得足够久，制造出几代人的垃圾。在《科学报告》杂志上，她和同事提出了一个不同的假设:人类故意将自己的剩饭剩菜与狼分享。

Her team calculated the energy content of common Paleolithic prey like moose, deer and caribou. And they found there likely would have been more than enough meat to go around. That’s because humans can’t survive on protein alone—but wolves can for months. So Lahtinen says we might have lobbed the leanest cuts their way.

她的团队计算了旧石器时代常见猎物如驼鹿、鹿和驯鹿的能量含量。他们发现那里可能有足够多的肉。这是因为人类不能仅靠蛋白质生存——但狼可以存活数月。拉赫蒂宁说我们可能给了他们最轻的一击。

“This is what we would have given to the dogs—and eaten the organs and bone marrows and the other fatty parts of the animal ourselves.”

“这就是我们给狗吃的东西——我们自己吃动物的器官、骨髓和其他脂肪部分。”

In other words, the meaty, pricey bits we prize today would have been what our ancestors threw to the dogs. And sharing our meat might have sparked a deeper relationship, Lahtinen says.

换句话说，我们今天所珍视的高价肉质食物，可能是我们的祖先给狗吃的。拉赫蒂宁说，与动物分享肉食，可以激发更深层次的关系。

“Because dogs are useful in very many ways, such as guardians, beasts of burden—they can pull a sledge. They can warn us from predators. You can use them as a hunting aid.”

因为狗在很多方面都很有用，比如守护人，负重的野兽，它们能拉雪橇。狗可以警告我们提防食肉动物。你可以把狗狗当作狩猎的帮手。”

And sooner or later, she says, the domesticated dog was born.

她说，驯养的狗狗迟早都会产生。