纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 004一对游泳的驯鹿（3）（在线收听）

The larger, male reindeer displays an impressive set of antlers, which run along almost the whole length of his back, and we can sex him quite confidently as the artist has carved his genitals under his belly. The female has smaller antlers and four little bumps on her underside that look just like teats.

体型较大的雄鹿展现出一对令人印象深刻的鹿角，长度几乎延伸完它整个后背，而且通过艺术家雕刻在它腹部下边的生殖品也可以清晰判断出它的性别。母鹿鹿角较小，而且腹部下边四个小凸起似乎就是四个奶嘴。

But we can be much more specific than this even, because we're clearly looking at these animals in the autumn, at the time of rutting and migration to winter pastures. Only in the autumn do both male and female have full sets of antlers and coats in such wonderful condition.

我们还可以更进一步地具体描绘，显然我们观察到的是秋天时向冬季牧地进行大迁移的驯鹿。因为也只有在冬天，雌雄驯鹿同时长有鹿角，而且拥有如此光泽油亮的好皮毛。

On the female's chest, the ribs and the sternum have been beautifully carved. This object was clearly made not just with the knowledge of a hunter but also with the insight of a butcher, someone who not only looked at his animals, but cut them up.

雌鹿的胸部部位上，肋骨民胸骨雕刻得精致传神。显然制作这件艺术品的人，不仅仅拥有猎人的知识，还拥有屠夫的见识；不仅仅观察过这些动物，而且屠宰过。

By an astonishing stroke of luck, we know that this detailed naturalism was only one of the styles that Ice Age artists had at their disposal.

通过极妙的机缘巧合，我们认识到这种细节逼真的自然主义风格仅仅冰河时代艺术家们进行艺术创造的众多风格之一。

In the case next to the reindeer, the British Museum shows another sculpture found in that same cave at Montastruc.

在驯鹿雕塑品旁边的展位台上，显现的是大英博物馆的另一件同是出土于 Montastruc河畔的雕塑品。

By happy symmetry, where our reindeer are carved on mammoth tusk, the other sculpture shows a mammoth carved on a reindeer antler.

可喜可叹的是，我们刚刚谈论的是一对驯鹿雕刻在猛犸象牙上，那另一件雕塑品却是一头猛犸象雕刻到驯鹿鹿角上。

But the mammoth, although instantly recognisable, is drawn in a quite different way - simplified and schematised, somewhere between a caricature and an abstraction, and this is no one-off accident; Ice Age artists display a whole range of artistic styles and techniques: abstract, naturalistic, even surreal - as well as using perspective and sophisticated composition. These are modern humans with modern human minds, just like our own. They still live by hunting and gathering, but they're interpreting the world through art. So what's driving this?

然而即使这猛犸象即使形象可以马上识别，展示的艺术手法却迥然不同，更加的简化、更加的速写，介于一种漫画与抽象画之间。这事实也绝非是一种偶然性，冰何时代艺术家们显示出丰富多样的艺术风格与技巧：抽象的、自然的、甚至是超现实的，还有使用角度因素与复杂的各种组合。这些人类已经是拥有现代头脑的现代人，就跟我们自己一样。他们的生存方式仍旧是狩猎与采集，然而他们已经通过艺术来诠释世界。那么，究竟是什么力量在驱动这些？

'I think what probably happens - around 100,000 years ago - is different bits of the brain get connected together in a new way, and they can combine different ways of thinking.

“我觉得大约十万年前，可能我们头脑的不同部位以一种崭新的方式连接了起来，使得人类开始可以结合不同思维方式进行思考。”

So they can combine what they know about nature with what they know about making things, and this gives them a new capacity to produce pieces of art.

“因此，他们能够把自己对大自然的认知结合到制造物品的知识中去，从而给予了他们创造艺术品的新能力。

But also I think those Ice Age conditions were critical as well. That was a very challenging time for people living in harsh, long winters - the need to build up really intense social bonds, the need for ritual, the need for religion, I think is all related to this flowering of fantastically creative art at the time.

但我认为当时冰河时代的客观条件也是极为关键的。当时对于要渡过恶劣而漫长冬季的人类而言，那是一段非常具有挑战性的岁月，从而他们延伸出建立非常亲密的社交纽带的渴望、祭祀的需求、宗教的需求；我认为这一切都与同时期，如此多的创造性艺术极戏剧化的如灿烂繁花般涌现有关。