研究：古代美洲人严重依赖猛犸象作为食物
📖 逐句对照翻译
A new study finds that the first humans to live in North America depended heavily on mammoths and other large animals for food.
一项新研究发现，最早生活在北美的人类高度依赖猛犸象和其他大型动物作为食物。
The finding is based on examinations of the diet of a woman who lived about 13,000 years ago during the last Ice Age.
这一发现基于对一位生活在约1.3万年前末次冰期女性的饮食情况的研究。
She belonged to a culture called the Clovis.
她属于一种被称为克洛维斯的文化。
They were among the first Native Americans to arrive on the continent.
他们是最早抵达该大陆的美洲原住民之一。
The woman was still breast-feeding her 18-month-old son when he died.
这位妇女的儿子在18个月大去世时仍在接受母乳喂养。
The boy’s remains were discovered back in 1968 in an ancient burial ground in the western U.S. state of Montana.
这名男孩的遗骸于1968年在美国西部蒙大拿州的一处古代墓地中被发现。
Scientists examined his bones to learn more about his mother’s diet.
科学家检查了他的骨骼，以进一步了解他母亲的饮食。
They found that the woman ate mostly meat from mammoths and other very large animals.
他们发现这名女性主要食用猛犸象和其他非常大型动物的肉。
The finding supports scientific theories that Clovis people specialized in hunting large animals instead of seeking plants or small animals to eat.
这一发现支持了科学理论，即克洛维斯人专门捕猎大型动物，而不是寻找植物或小动物为食。
At the time the Clovis people lived, large animals like mammoths lived in areas covering the Americas, as well as parts of northern Asia.
在克洛维斯人生活的时代，猛犸象等大型动物栖息在覆盖美洲以及北亚部分地区的区域。
The researchers noted that mammoths traveled very long distances during this period.
研究人员指出，猛犸象在这一时期迁徙了非常遥远的距离。
This made them a target for migrating humans seeking protein-rich foods to eat.
这使得它们成为寻找富含蛋白质食物的迁徙人类的目标。
The team examined isotope data collected from the boy’s bones to estimate the Clovis woman’s dietary intake.
团队通过分析从男孩骨骼中收集的同位素数据，来估算这位克洛维斯女性的饮食摄入量。
An isotope is a kind of atom that has a different atomic weight than similar atoms, but the same chemical structure.
同位素是一种原子，其原子量与其他同类原子不同，但化学结构相同。
The isotope experiments centered on the elements carbon and nitrogen.
同位素实验主要集中在碳和氮这两种元素上。
Mat Wooller is a professor and director of the Alaska Stable Isotope center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
马特·伍勒是阿拉斯加大学费尔班克斯分校的教授，也是阿拉斯加稳定同位素中心的主任。
He was a co-writer of the study describing the research in the publication Science Advances.
他是《科学进展》杂志上描述这项研究的论文的合著者。
Wooller told Reuters news agency isotope examinations can provide “a chemical fingerprint” of parts of an ancient human’s diet.
伍勒告诉路透社，同位素检测可以提供古人类部分饮食的“化学指纹”。
"We are all made of elements, like carbon and nitrogen, and so is our food," he said.
他说：“我们都是由碳、氮等元素构成的，我们的食物也是如此。”
James Chatters is a professor of Earth, Environment and Society at Canada’s McMaster University.
詹姆斯·查特斯是加拿大麦克马斯特大学地球、环境与社会专业的教授。
He helped lead the research.
他协助领导了这项研究。
Chatters said in a statement that centering on mammoths “helps explain how Clovis people could spread throughout North America and into South America in just a few hundred years.”
Chatters在一份声明中表示，以猛犸象为中心“有助于解释克洛维斯人如何在短短几百年内遍布北美并进入南美”。
The scientists estimated the woman mostly ate meat from a group of animals called megafauna, the largest creatures that existed at the time.
科学家估计，这名女子主要食用一种被称为巨型动物群的动物肉类，这些是当时存在的最大型生物。
The study showed megafauna made up about 96 percent of her diet, with mammoth accounting for about 40 percent of the total.
研究表明，大型动物约占她饮食的96%，其中猛犸象约占总量的40%。
Chatters said one mammoth could support “a dependent community of children, care-giving women, and less mobile elders for days or even weeks while the hunters sought their next kill.
聊天者们说，一头猛犸象可以养活“一个由儿童、照顾孩子的妇女和行动不便的老人组成的受抚养群体，维持数天甚至数周，而猎人们则在此期间去寻找下一次猎物。
" Mammoths stood to about four meters tall at the shoulder and weighed as much as 11 tons.
猛犸象肩高约四米，体重可达11吨。
Chatters said the Clovis people were known to be highly skilled hunters with a 10,000-year history of hunting megafauna over wide areas of territory.
聊天者表示，克洛维斯人以其高超的狩猎技巧而闻名，他们拥有在广阔领土上猎杀巨型动物长达一万年的历史。
He added that the great dependence of the Clovis on megafauna likely led to the pressures that later caused the extinction of large ice age animals.
他补充说，克洛维斯人对巨型动物群的极度依赖很可能造成了压力，进而导致后来大型冰期动物的灭绝。
Chatters noted the latest finding supports past studies that provided "indirect evidence” that Clovis people mainly depended on mammoths and other large animals for food.
聊天者们指出，这一最新发现支持了以往的研究，那些研究提供了“间接证据”，表明克洛维斯人主要以猛犸象和其他大型动物为食。
This evidence included examinations of different artifacts – such as stone tools or the ancient remains of large animals, he said.
他说，这些证据包括对不同人工制品的考察，例如石制工具或大型动物的古代遗骸。
Ben Potter was also a co-writer of the study.
本·波特也是这项研究的合著者。
He is an archeologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
他是阿拉斯加大学费尔班克斯分校的一名考古学家。
Potter told Reuters, "These results also help us understand megafauna extinctions at the end of the last Ice Age.
波特告诉路透社：“这些结果还有助于我们了解上个冰河时代末期巨型动物的灭绝情况。”
” He added the findings suggest that humans may have played a more important part in the extinctions than is sometimes thought.
他补充说，研究结果表明，人类在物种灭绝中所起的作用可能比人们有时认为的更为重要。
I’m Bryan Lynn.
我是布莱恩·林恩。
Reuters reported this story.
路透社报道了此事。
Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English, with additional information from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and Science Advances.
布莱恩·林恩为VOA学习英语改编了这份报告，并补充了来自阿拉斯加大学费尔班克斯分校和《科学进展》的信息。
