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Dogs were man's best friend far earlier than thought

狗成为人类 “最佳伙伴” 的时间远早于早前认知

文字稿

It's a small piece of jawbone, but a huge scientific discovery.

这块下颌骨虽小，却是一项重大的科学发现。

The animal it belonged to stalked these caves in Cheddar Gorge thousands of years ago.

长有这块骨头的动物在数千年前曾在切达峡谷的洞穴中出没。

New tests on the bone, of which this is a replica, have revealed astonishing new insights into the relationship between the beast that once roamed these caves and the people who lived here.

通过对这块骨头进行的检测，这里展示的是复制品，我们得以窥见曾经在这些洞穴中漫步的猛兽和在此生活的人类之间惊人的关系。

Pallab Ghosh, BBC correspondent
"It may not look like much, but this fragment of a jawbone has transformed our ideas of dogs and their relationship to humans. Genetic analysis shows that this was one of the first ever domesticated dogs that lived with humans here 15,000 years ago. That's thousands of years earlier than anyone had previously thought."

帕拉布·戈什 BBC 通讯员
“它看起来也许不起眼，但这块下颌骨碎片改变了我们对狗以及它们和人类之间关系的看法。基因分析显示，这是最早被驯化的家犬之一，它在 1.5 万年前和人类共同居住于此。这比此前人们认为的时间早了数千年。”

Dr Lachie Scarsbrook, geneticist, University of Oxford
"We had Stone Age hunter-gatherers and their dogs living and inhabiting this cave."

拉奇·斯卡布鲁克博士牛津大学遗传学家
“石器时代的狩猎采集者和他们的狗就曾经生活和居住在这个洞窟中。”

Doctor Lachie Brooke was among the scientists who made the discovery.

拉奇·斯卡布鲁克博士是参与这项发现的科学家之一。

Dr Lachie Scarsbrook, geneticist, University of Oxford
"Not only is this earlier than we thought for dogs, it's 6,000 years earlier than cattle, pigs, sheep – all of these other domesticates. Cats only entered our homes 2,000 years ago. So this is a very long-standing relationship between humans and dogs, and it's been pushed back for 5,000 years earlier than we thought before."

拉奇·斯卡布鲁克博士牛津大学遗传学家
“这不仅刷新了我们对狗的认知，它也比牛、猪、羊等所有其它家畜的驯化早了 6000 年。猫在 2000 年前才住进我们的家宅。因此，人和狗的关系源远流长，而这项发现将这一时间线又往前推进了 5000 年。”

These are broken remains of puppies that once lived around the same time, but 2,000 miles away in central Anatolia in Turkey.

这些是生活在同一时期的幼犬遗骨，但发现地点是在 2000 英里之外的土耳其安纳托利亚中部。

The tests showed that the dogs were genetically similar, which means that the Turkish dogs must have travelled across Europe with their masters.

检测显示，这些狗的基因十分相似，这意味着土耳其的狗一定是随主人一起横跨了欧洲。

Tests also showed they ate the same food as humans.

检测还显示它们和人类吃了相同的食物。

Dr Selina Brace, Merit Researcher, Natural History Museum
"Dogs and humans were travelling together. They were also sharing the same food. There is this closeness between them. So, human's best friend was his best friend at least 15,000 years ago."

赛琳娜·布雷斯博士伦敦自然史博物馆高级研究员
“狗当时和人类一起旅行。还会共享食物。他们的关系非常亲密。所以说，早在 1.5万年前，狗就是人类最好的朋友了。”

But the scientific search goes on.

但科学研究仍在继续。

Dr William Marsh, Natural History Museum
"Although this was a bit of breakthrough, we still have no real understanding of how dogs and wolves first separated. But from genetic analysis, we can tell it was probably between about 40,000 and 15,000 years ago."

威廉·马什博士伦敦自然史博物馆
“虽然这是一个突破，但我们依然不清楚狗和狼最初是如何分化的。不过根据基因分析，我们可以断定这大概发生在 4 万到 1.5万年前。”

The new research, published in the journal Nature, suggests that the friendship between the very first dogs and Stone Age humans runs very deep, and was there almost from the very start.

这项发布在《自然》杂志上的新研究表明，最初的狗和石器时代人类之间的友谊根深蒂固，并且几乎从一开始就存在了。