第2284期:Researchers Discover Very Small Human Ancestors

Twenty years ago on an Indonesian island, scientists discovered ancient bone remains of an early human species that stood about one meter tall.二十年前，在印度尼西亚的一个岛屿上，科学家们发现了一种早期人类物种的古老骨骼遗骸，这种人类身高约为一米。These early humans became popularly known as “hobbits.” The name comes for the small humanlike creatures that appear in books by English writer J.R.R Tolkien.这些早期人类被广泛称为“霍比特人”。这个名字来源于英国作家J.R.R.托尔金的书中出现的小型类人生物。Now a new study suggests ancestors of the “hobbits” were even shorter.现在，一项新的研究表明，“霍比特人”的祖先甚至比他们还要矮小。Yousuke Kaifu of the University of Tokyo was a co-writer of the study. Kaifu said in an email, “We did not expect that we would find smaller individuals from such an old site.”东京大学的海部阳介是这项研究的共同作者。海部在一封电子邮件中表示，“我们没有预料到会在如此古老的遗址中发现更小个体。”The discoverers of the first hobbit fossils named them after characters in the The Lord of the Rings books. The fossils date back to between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago.第一批霍比特人化石的发现者根据《指环王》书中的角色为其命名。这些化石可追溯到六万至十万年前。Researchers found the new fossils at a place called Mata Menge, about 70 kilometers from the cave where researchers found the first hobbit remains.研究人员在一个叫做Mata Menge的地方发现了新的化石，这里距离研究人员首次发现霍比特人遗骸的洞穴约70公里。In 2016, researchers suspected the earlier relatives could be shorter than the hobbits after studying a jawbone and teeth collected from the new site. Additional examination of a small arm bone piece and teeth suggests the ancestors were 6 centimeters shorter and existed 700,000 years ago.2016年，研究人员在研究从新遗址收集到的下颌骨和牙齿后，怀疑早期的亲属可能比霍比特人还要矮小。对一块小臂骨和牙齿的进一步检查表明，这些祖先比霍比特人矮6厘米，生活在70万年前。Dean Falk of Florida State University was not involved with the research. Falk said that the researchers in the study have “convincingly shown that these were very small individuals.”佛罗里达州立大学的迪恩·福克并未参与这项研究。福克表示，这项研究的研究人员“有说服力地证明了这些是非常小的个体。”The findings appeared recently in the publication Nature Communications.这些发现最近发表在《自然通讯》杂志上。Researchers have debated how the hobbits – named Homo floresiensis after the Indonesian island of Flores – developed to be so small and where they fall in the human evolutionary story. Homo floresiensis are thought to be among the last early human species to die off.研究人员一直在争论这些霍比特人——根据印度尼西亚弗洛勒斯岛命名为弗洛勒斯人——是如何变得如此矮小的，以及它们在人体进化史上的位置。弗洛勒斯人被认为是最后灭绝的早期人类物种之一。Scientists do not yet know whether the hobbits shrank from an earlier, taller human species called Homo erectus that lived in the area, or from an even more primitive human ancestor. Scientists need more study, and more fossils, to learn the hobbits’ place in human evolution, said Matt Tocheri of Canada’s Lakehead University.科学家们尚不清楚霍比特人是从早期的、更高大的人类物种——直立人——缩小而来的，还是从更原始的人类祖先演变而来。加拿大湖首大学的马特·托切里表示，科学家们需要更多的研究和化石来确定霍比特人在人体进化中的位置。In an email, Tocheri, who was not involved in the research, wrote, “This question remains unanswered and will continue to be a focus of research for some time to come.”在一封电子邮件中，未参与该研究的托切里写道，“这个问题仍然没有答案，并将在未来一段时间内继续成为研究的重点。”