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本帖最后由 小山林卡 于 2018-5-30 10:17 编辑
Incredible discovery reveals the truth behind an ancient Chineselegend 惊天考古发现揭开中国古代神话背后的真相 A deluge on the Yellow River 4,000 years ago led to a feat of Bronze Age hydro-engineering. 4000年前黄河流域的一次洪水造就了青铜时代水利工程的一代功绩。 ANNALEE NEWITZ - 8/5/2016, 8:47 PM
Ancient Chinese legends tell of a catastrophic flood alongthe Yellow River that led to the founding of the Xia dynasty, roughly 4,000years ago. A legendary hero named Yu is said to have established the Xiadynasty after figuring out how to stop the flood waters by dredging,thus marking the dawn of Chinese civilization with a feat of landscapeengineering. Now, a group of geoscientists and archaeologists in China hasdiscovered that this flood actually happened. 在中国古代神话中，传说大约4000年之前在黄河流域发生了一场大洪灾，这次灾害让夏朝的建立成为可能。一代传奇英雄大禹据说正是在发现疏浚河道止洪的方法之后，才建立了夏这个王朝，这一水利工程壮举标志着中国文明进程的开端。如今，一个由地质学家和考古学家在中国组成的专家组发现这场洪水并不只是一个传说。
The group's recently published findings in Science magazine explain how theyfound traces of this historic deluge. For more than a century, archaeologistshave looked for evidence that could shed light on historical accounts of earlyChinese civilization, such as those in first century BCE book Shiji (史记,traditionally translated as Records ofthe Grand Historian). Many accounts in the Shiji have turned out to be fairly accurate, especially when itcame to the Shang dynasty that followed the Xia. Because the Shang dynastycivilization had writing, scientists have been able to verify the Shiji's accuracy from written recordsas well as material remains. 这个专家组最近在《科学》杂志上公布了文章，解释了他们是如何探寻到这场历史性洪灾的遗留痕迹的。考古学家们用超过一个世纪的时间，来寻找能进一步释证早期中国文明的文史资料，其中就包括有写于公元前1世纪的《史记》（通常被译作《一位伟大历史学家的笔录》）。《史记》中的多处记载如今已被证实具有相当的准确性，尤其是对在夏朝之后的商朝的记录。也正是因为商朝社会已有文字记录，学者们能够将史料与相关遗迹对比，证实《史记》本身的准确程度。
Reconstructinga flood 洪水之日重现
Much about the Xia dynasty, however, remains mysterious.Although this Bronze Age civilization was highly sophisticated, it did not usewriting, and the only accounts we have of it come from stories of the greatflood that Yu controlled. Now, scientists are certain there was a megaflood onthe Yellow River in roughly 1900 BCE. Ancient Chinese historiographers placedthe rise of the Xia dynasty during the 2200s BCE, so their dates were about 300years off. But whenever it happened, the flood was so devastating and enormousthat the archaeologists who discovered it have no doubt that it would have lefta lasting impression on any civilization that experienced it. 然而，夏朝却在很大程度上来说仍是一个谜。尽管历史上的这段青铜文明先进而成熟，却并没有留下任何文字记载，我们能找到的唯一描述也只是来自于那些讲述大禹治水的故事。现在，科学家们确信大约在公元前1900年，黄河流域确实发生过一场巨大的洪水。研究中国古代史的史学家们判断夏朝的兴起是在公元前2200年左右，这样来看两个事件之间相差了大约300年。但无论它是在什么时候发生的，发现了线索的考古学家们都认为这场毁灭性的滔天洪水一定会给当时受灾的社会文明带来旷日持久的影响。
Purduegeoscientist Darryl Granger, who worked with the research team in China,described the flood at a press conference earlier this week. The flood waters,he said, "reached up to 38 meters above the modern river level." Weknow that because the scientistsfound distinctive sediments released by the flood inthe Jishi Gorge and elsewhere downriver. Knowing the water levels helped thegroup figure out the volume of water, which, Dr. Granger said, "tells usthat the flood was [flowing] about 300 to 500 thousand cubic meters per second...It's among the largest known floods to have happened on Earth during the past10,000 years." 作为这项研究组其中一员，来自普渡大学的地质学家达里尔·葛兰杰，在本周稍早些时候的一场新闻发布会上描述了这场洪水。对于当时的洪水强度，他是这样形容的：“比当下的河流（黄河）水位高度高出了38米。” 科学家们之所以能够判断出这一点是因为在积石峡和其他下游地区发现了一些特殊的沉积物；知道了水位高低也帮助小组成员推算出洪水体积的大小，按葛兰杰博士的描述就是：“（这个水位）告诉我们，当时的洪水速度【流速】大约是每秒300到500立方米……算得上是过去10000年中地球上已知的最大洪水之一。”
But how did it happen? Answering that meant combiningarchaeology with an understanding of flood mechanics. Downstream from JishiGorge are the remains of a Neolithic settlement called the Lajia site, whichthe scientists noted is part of a culture "known for its early noodleremains." There, in caves, archaeologists found evidence of a massiveearthquake that killed dozens of these ancient noodle eaters. The skeletons ofthe quake victims, dated to roughly 1900 BCE, were covered in the same kind offlood sediments that the researchers found upstream. On top of the floodsediments they found another layer of sediment that was from a typical rainyseason. That told the researchers two things: one, there was a deadlyearthquake before the flood; and two, the flood happened less than a year afterthe quake, because there is no rainy season sediment in between the skeletonsand the flood sediment layer. 但是这场灾难是怎么发生的？要回答这个问题，需要结合考古学原理和洪水发生机制。自积石峡沿河流而下，有一处被称为喇家遗址①的新石器时代村落遗迹，科学家们曾指出这里还是“已知的早期面条遗迹”文化的一部分。在洞穴内，考古学家们发现了一场大地震发生的痕迹，地震夺走了这些以面条为食的古人的生命。而这场灾难受害者的骨骸，大约从公元前1900年开始就被与研究人员在河流上沿地区发现的洪水沉积物相同的物质覆盖着。在洪水沉积物的顶部，他们还发现了另外一层该地区特有的雨季所造成的沉积迹象。对于研究人员来说，这说明了两件事情：首先，在洪水之前这里曾发生过一场致命的地震；除此之外，在这次地震之后不到一年，洪水就发生了，因为在洪水的沉积物和骨骸之间并没有雨季的沉积痕迹。
Based on that evidence, the research team modeled a scenariobased on data from similar quakes and floods. Most likely, the quake caused amassive landslide that dammed the Yellow River (indeed, there are remains of adam upstream from Jishi Gorge). The dam created a lake that was "about 200meters deep," Granger said. He added: "To put this into perspective, it’s somewhere between the height of theThree Gorges Dam in China and Hoover Dam in the United States."Eventually, under continuous assault from the river, the dam was overwhelmed byrising waters and overtopped. This type of failure would have instantlydestroyed the structure of the dam, leading to an "outburst flood"that gushed into the river valleys downstream,destroying villages and farms. 根据种种迹象，研究组以相似规模的地震和洪水为基准，建立了一个设想模型。最可能的情况是，这次地震造成了一次大规模的山体塌方，使得黄河水流遭到拦截（而这是确实可能的，在积石峡上游地区有自然坝体形成的遗留痕迹）。而这个“坝体”形成了一个堰塞湖，葛兰杰博士提到：“（湖）有200米左右的深度”，他还说：“更具体点来说的话，这个高度大概是在中国三峡大坝和美国的胡佛大坝之间”。由于受到河水持续不断的冲击，这个自然坝体最终被不断上涨的水位所淹没。而这次拦截的失败很可能使得坝体结构立即遭到破坏，从而引发了一场“爆发性的洪水”涌向下游的河谷地带，摧毁了当地的村庄和农场。
Aradical change in Chinese civilization 一次中华文明的根本性变革
There is noevidence of Yu or his dredging, but the researchers note in their paper thatthe flood would have destroyed the natural levees carved by the river overtime. With no steep banks to hold the waters on their course, the Yellow Riverlikely flooded the lands downstream every year after the dam shattered. Forpeople living in the region, there would have been a desperate need fordredging techniques. If Yu led the locals in an engineering effort to rebuildthe banks of the Yellow River, it's clear why he achieved culture hero status. 虽然并没有证据证明大禹和他治水的功劳，但研究学者们在文章里强调，这场洪水可能已经破坏了长期以来河水自然流动下雕刻出的天然河堤。在坝体被摧毁之后，没有陡岸蓄流，黄河下游地区每年都会遭受洪水袭击。因此，对住在这个地区的人们来说，疏浚河道的工程技术大概是他们最为急切的需求。如果是大禹带领当地居民重修黄河河堤的话，毫无疑问他会被认定为民族英雄。
Though the researchers caution that we have no materialevidence of a leader named Yu founding the Xia dynasty, we do know for certainthat this flood came at a time of radical transformation in Chinesecivilization. National Taiwan University anthropologist David Cohen said therewas a brief period of social collapse at the end of the Neolithic period when this flood happened, and then wesee the emergence of a much more complex social order during the Erlitouculture of the Bronze Age. "The story of Yu taming the flood is the storyof a new political order emerging out of the chaos of the flood," heexplained. Cohen said the Neolithic culture at the Lajia site disappears, and"we have a transitional period that we don't understand too well."But then, after that: 尽管有研究者们警告，我们并没有任何实物证据证明一个名叫大禹的领袖建立了夏朝，但我们确实很清楚地知道这场洪水发生在中国社会文明彻底变革的时代。来自国立台湾大学的人类学家大卫·科恩认为在洪水发生的新石器时代末，社会曾有过一段短暂的混乱分裂时期，在这之后， 青铜时代二里头文化②时期出现了更为复杂的社会制度。他解释说：“大禹治水就是一个新的政治制度从洪水带来的混乱中诞生的故事。”科恩还说到位于喇家遗址的新石器文明消失了，并且“在这期间有一段过渡的时期，我们对此并没有太多了解。”除此之外，他还说：
“The Erlitou,and later the sites associated with the Shang dynasty, emerge. And when they do, things are at a new level of development. Thecities that are built jump from 10, 20,30 hectares in size up to 300 or more hectares in size. We have more complex administrative structures, we have a writing system thatemerges, we have workshops manufacturingbronzes that require the long-distance transport of metals from various parts of China into these centers in the Yellow River. Sothings are just being done at a higherorder of complexity and organization... And this is what's occurring around1900 BC.” “二里头文明，还有后来商朝时的城镇定居点，都在不断出现。而这一旦发生，事情就进入了一个新的发展阶段。城镇的建设面积从10、20、30公顷蹿升到300公顷以上。我们还有了更复杂的行政结构，不断兴起的书写文字系统，以及铸造青铜器的生产工坊，用的材料都是从中国各地长途跋涉运送到黄河沿岸铸造中心的各类金属。这样来看，一切都是在更为复杂的秩序和更强的组织里完成的……这是在公元前1900年发生的。”
Of course, a massive flood around the time of China's BronzeAge transition might just be a coincidence. "We don't havecausation," Cohen said plainly. That said, these events do fit a patterndescribed in the Shiji. Wecould really be looking at what the researchers call in their paper "aprofound and complicated cultural response to an extreme naturaldisaster." 当然，这场浩大的洪水在中国青铜时代转型时期出现大概也只是一个巧合。“我们没有发现这中间有因果关系，”科恩清楚地说道。尽管如此，这些事件和《史记》中的相关记载确实能够互相呼应。研究人员在文章里提出的“面对一场极端的自然灾害，文明给以了复杂且深远的回应”这一观点，也确实值得我们去关注。
What is perhapsmost satisfying, for those with a technical or scientific bent, is that theflood at the dawn of Chinese civilization was apparently perceived as anengineering problem. Yu saved the world with hydrology. And that makes thelegend of the Xia dynastymore relevant than ever in our world of rising waters and broken levees. 对那些对科学技术更感兴趣的人来说，最让人欣慰的大概是，这场发生在中国社会文明兴起之初的洪水很明显是一个工程上的问题。大禹用水文科学拯救了世界，这也让夏朝的传奇与世界各地水位的上涨、河堤的破坏有了从未有过的紧密联系。
Science, 2016. DOI:10.1126/science.aaf0842 Listing image by Wu Qinglong 《科学》2016 DOI:10.1126/science.aaf0842 图片来自吴庆龙（音译）
释义： ①喇家遗址：喇家遗址位于黄河上游的青海省民和县官亭镇喇家村，总面积约40万平方米，重点面积约20万平方米。与甘肃省积石山县大河家隔黄河相邻。青海省东部重要通道川官公路直达。距青海省西宁市200多公里，甘肃省临夏市100公里。 遗址主要为齐家文化中晚期遗存，是一处新石器时代的巨大聚落，抑或是一个遥远的城邦古国。尤其以发掘出非自然性死亡人体遗骸，是迄今为止发现的我国唯一一处大型灾难遗址。
②二里头文化：二里头文化是指以河南省洛阳市偃师二里头遗址一至四期所代表的一类考古学文化遗存，是介于中原龙山文化和二里冈文化的一种考古学文化。该考古文化主要集中分布于豫西、豫中，首先发现于河南省郑州市洛达庙遗址，但尤其以二里头遗址发现的该类文化遗存最具代表性和典型性，故以此命名。二里头文化，既包含了二里头遗址的文化，又包括了二里头遗址之外具有二里头遗址文化特征的上百处遗址所反映的文化面貌。二里头遗址和二里头文化成为公认的探索夏文化的关键性研究对象。 （以上释义来源于百度百科）
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发表于 2018-5-30 10:16:05
