15000年前的猛犸象陷阱，是古代猎人的第一个证据

The first discovery of human-made woolly mammoth traps has shattered myths about how prehistoric humans hunted.

人类制造的猛犸象陷阱的首次发现，打破了史前人类狩猎的神话。

Archaeologists unearthed the 5-foot-deep, 82-foot-wide pits in Tultepec, outside of Mexico City — in an area that was going to be used as a dump, according to Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History.

据墨西哥国家人类学和历史研究所介绍，考古学家们在墨西哥城郊外的图尔特佩克发掘出了这些深5英尺、宽82英尺的坑，这些坑本来要用作当垃圾场。

Good thing they didn’t. The holes housed hundreds of 15,000-year-old mammoth bones, leading scientists to deduce that they were purposefully ensnared in the quarry.

幸好他们没有。洞里有数以百计的15000年前的猛犸象骨头，这使得科学家推断他们是故意在采石场设圈套的。

The discovery “represents a watershed, a turning point in what we until now imagined to be the interaction between hunter-gatherers with these huge herbivores,” Diego Prieto Hernández, director of the institute, said in a statement.

该研究所所长迭戈·普里托·埃尔南德斯在一份声明中说，这一发现“代表了一个分水岭，是我们迄今为止想象的狩猎采集者与这些巨大食草动物之间相互作用的转折点”。

Scientists previously thought humans “randomly” targeted mammoths trapped by environmental obstacles such as swamps. However, the ancient graveyard demonstrates “social organization by the first settlers of the Basin of Mexico to undertake this hunting activity.”

科学家此前认为，人类“随机”瞄准被沼泽等环境障碍物困住的猛犸象。然而，古代墓地以“墨西哥盆地的第一批殖民者”进行“社会组织”来从事这一狩猎活动。

Specifically, scientists hypothesized that groups of 20 to 30 hunters would “herd” the mammoths into the holes with torches and branches.

具体地说，科学家们假设由20到30名猎人组成的小组，会用火把和树枝把猛犸象“赶”进洞里。

The revelation didn’t happen overnight. Over 10 months, archaeologists exhumed 824 bones — corresponding to 14 animals — from the two tusker traps. They then used their boneyard blueprint to paint a picture of how the hunt went down.

这个发现不是一夜之间发生的。在10个多月的时间里，考古学家从两个塔斯克陷阱中挖掘出824块骨头，相当于14种动物。然后他们用他们的墓地蓝图描绘了一幅狩猎过程的画面。

Scientists hope to continue their fossil forensics at three other sites, where they expect to discover how mammoth hunters employed a row of traps to “reduce their margin of error,” Hernández said.

埃尔南德斯说，科学家们希望继续在另外三个地点进行化石取证，他们希望在那里发现猛犸象猎人是如何利用一排陷阱来“减少误差幅度”的。

(INAH/AFP via Getty Images)