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Human Origins from Afar

机译：远方的人类起源

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In a dusty, barren area in the Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia, about 140 miles northeast of Addis Ababa, lies a place that holds unique renown among paleontologists. Over the eons, seasonal rains have washed out and exposed bits of the past, including a spectacular, if scattered, assemblage of human ancestors. Here, a triangular area, 310 miles per side, cradles an estimated six million years of prehistory, in rare pockets within mile-thick sediment. "Whenever it rains, new fossils are revealed," explains Yohannes Haile-Selassie, curator of physical anthropology at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Recently published fossil finds from the area, each representing years of collection, preparation, and analysis, bracket in time what we know of our past. Over the last 20 years, paleontologists have uncovered a few of our ancestors in this region, the earliest being the 6-million-year old Ardipithecus, to the much more recent 156,000-year-old Herto people, who were a mere step away from modern humanity. The 1997 discovery of Homo sapiens idaltu, or simply the Herto people, with their significant cranial capacity, large faces and teeth, adds substantial weight to the theory that Africa was the only home to intermediaries between nonmodern and modern humans. "The Herto fossils are the earliest, well-dated H. sapiens of modern aspect," says Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. Moreover, the fossils' age places them in a contentious time period, when "Mitochondrial Eve," the most recentscommon maternal ancestor of us all, dwelled in Africa.
机译：在埃塞俄比亚大裂谷的尘土飞扬，贫瘠的地区，位于亚的斯亚贝巴东北约140英里处，是古生物学家享有盛名的地方。历代以来，季节性的降雨冲刷掉了过去的痕迹，其中包括壮观的，甚至是分散的人类祖先。在这里，一个三角形的区域，每边310英里，在一英里厚的沉积物内的稀有口袋中，孕育了大约600万年的史前史。克里夫兰自然历史博物馆的自然人类学策展人Yohannes Haile-Selassie解释说：“每当下雨时，都会发现新的化石。”该地区最近发表的化石发现，每个代表化年，收集和分析的时间，及时地将我们对过去的了解。在过去的20年中，古生物学家发现了我们在该地区的一些祖先，最早的是600万岁的Ardipithecus，最近的是156,000岁的Herto人，他们距此仅一步之遥现代人类。 1997年发现智人，或简称为赫托人，他们具有强大的颅骨能力，宽阔的面孔和牙齿，这大大增加了非洲是非现代人类与现代人类之间中介者的理论。伦敦自然历史博物馆人类起源负责人克里斯·斯特林格（Chris Stringer）表示：“赫托化石是现代最早的，现代的智人。”此外，化石的时代使它们处于一个有争议的时期，当时我们所有人中最常见的母系祖先“线粒体夏娃”居住在非洲。

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