好英语网高山考古学家：与时间赛跑抢救“冰冻文物”
Ice crystals landed on my face, falling from the ceiling of the tent and shocking me awake in a frozen flash. Through my many layers of fleece, I heard a faint snuffling noise. I unzipped my sleeping bag in a daze and sat up, with one eye on my canister of bear spray and one ear straining to listen.
冰晶从帐篷顶上落下来，落到了我的脸上，那一瞬间的冰冷把我惊醒。透过我身上盖的层层羊毛，我听到了微弱的呼吸声。迷迷糊糊中，我拉开睡袋，坐了起来，一只眼睛盯着我那罐防熊喷雾剂，一只耳朵使劲地听着。
All I heard was the rapids from the nearby creek and a welcoming whinny from one of our horses grazing in the alpine meadow outside Yellowstone National Park. Just then, I heard the fresh sound of sticks snapping as someone – or something – crept by. Opening the tent flap, I stared out across the foggy meadow below the Absaroka Mountains and then down at the ground, where a track from a large wolf was freshly imprinted in the soil, mere inches from where I had been sleeping.
我听到的只有附近小溪的急流水声，和在黄石国家公园外草地上吃草的马儿发出的嘶鸣声。但就在这时，我听到了树枝折断的声音，就像是有人或什么东西蹑手蹑脚地经过时发出的。我打开帐篷，看着远处阿布萨罗卡山（Absaroka Mountains）下的雾蒙蒙的草地，接着看到了眼前的地上印了一匹大野狼的足迹，离我睡觉的地方只有几英寸远。
Over at the campfire, a colleague mentioned that a pack of four wolves had just been sniffing the outside of my tent. “It was only the mountains saying good morning,” she said, placing the kettle back onto the embers. “With a visit like that, we’re bound to have an extraordinary day.”
在篝火旁，我的同事告诉我，之前有四匹狼在我的帐篷外面嗅来嗅去。“这只是群山在对我们问早安，”她说着，把水壶放回余火上。“有了这样的拜访，我们一定会有特别的一天。”
In my 15 years of working with scientists in the US’ Rocky Mountains, I’ve come face to face with grizzly bears, escaped forest fires, swum across flooding rivers while holding onto horses and discovered prehistoric villages. But I’ve never considered a tent-side wolf visit to be a blessing. Yet, as the red light of the sun illuminated the slope above us, I looked up at the glistening snowfields and wondered which ancient, frozen stories the mountains would reveal today.
在美国落基山脉（Rocky Mountains），我和其他科学家们一起工作的15年时间里，我曾与灰熊面对面、逃过森林大火、骑着马越过洪水泛滥的河流，还发现过史前村落。但我从未想过野狼来到帐篷边是一件幸事。然而，当太阳的红光照亮我们上方的山坡时，我抬头看着闪闪发光的雪原，就会想知道这些绵延的山脉下隐藏的故事。
As an alpine archaeologist, I study how past cultures lived at high altitudes and snowy environments above the tree line. Visitors, eyes squinting and necks straining, often describe the alpine landscape’s wind-whipped crags and icy gorges as harsh and intimidating. But growing up at the foot of Wyoming’s Teton Range in the heart of the Rockies, I have always felt at home here. In fact, 3,000m is where I feel the most alive. Yet, it wasn’t until I started exploring my backyard from a different perspective that I realised the wilderness holds a vault of forgotten and untold stories that intertwine people and nature.
作为一名高山考古学家，我研究过去的文化是如何在高海拔和雪域环境中存活的。游客们常常眯起眼睛、伸长脖子，把高山风化的峭壁和冰冷的峡谷认为是令人生畏的。但我生长在落基山脉中心怀俄明州（Wyoming）的提顿山脉（Teton Range）下，在这里我反而总有一种家的感觉。事实上，3000米是我觉得最有活力的地方。然而，直到我开始从一个不同的角度探索这片土地，我才意识到这里蕴藏着那些被遗忘的、交织着人与自然的故事。
一队高山考古学家徒步前往怀俄明州提顿山脉的大本营
十几岁的时候，我夏天在怀俄明州指导登山旅行。在一次进入温德河山脉（Wind River Range）的旅行中，我在我们的营地旁边发现了一个箭头，一想到我们是在前人曾在2000年前扎过营的地方扎营，我就很想知道为什么山脉总是那么吸引着人类。那年秋天我上大学时，就开始研究怀俄明州山脉的历史，但只是在一本很旧的考古杂志上找到了一个记录，“高地的环境太恶劣，以至于无法让史前时代的人生存”。
Several months later, I discovered that an archaeologist from Wyoming named Dr Richard Adams had just unearthed an entire prehistoric village only a few miles away from where I had found the arrowhead. I contacted him and he invited me to join him on a project to excavate the village he had found. Adams showed me that the mountains held ancient secrets waiting to be uncovered, so I traded in my climbing rope for a trowel and began an exhilarating new career in search of our hidden past.
几个月后，我发现一位来自怀俄明州名叫理查德·亚当斯（Richard Adams）的考古学家，在上次我发现箭头处几英里外的地方发现了一个完整的史前村庄。于是我联系了他，他也邀请我和他一起探索这个村庄。亚当斯向我展示了如何去发现那些隐藏在山脉中的古老秘密，于是我用登山绳换了一把铲子，就开始了这项令人振奋的新事业——寻找我们被隐藏的过去。
I now direct projects in the mountains of North America ranging from archaeological digs to satellite searches to locate prehistoric villages. It has been a fascinating adventure, and humbling to think it all began with a chance discovery as a 17-year-old.
现在，我在北美的山区指导各种项目，从考古发掘到用卫星搜索史前村庄。这是令人着迷的冒险，而这一切都始于17岁时的一次意外发现。
Because many archaeologists have long considered alpine environments too harsh to have supported ancient people, most mountains remain vastly unexplored. However, for those who have begun to work among the towering peaks across the globe, high elevations are an exciting terra incognita that are just beginning to be understood.
长久以来，许多考古学家都认为高山环境太恶劣，不适合古代人类居住，因此大部分山脉仍未被人们探索。然而，对于那些已经在世界各地高山上开始探索工作的人来说，高山是一块刚刚开始被人所了解，却又令人兴奋的未知领域。
In summer, my colleagues and I trek deep into the Rocky Mountains, from the glacier-carved peaks of Wyoming to the high meadows of Colorado, in search of undiscovered villages, hunting structures, stone quarries and other evidence of life from about 13000BC (when humans are believed to have first arrived in North America) through the present. But unlike most archaeology, there is one thing that is particularly unique about our work: the clues we find aren’t always buried in the soil; sometimes they’re trapped under the ice.
夏天，我和同事们徒步深入落基山脉，从怀俄明州的冰峰到科罗拉多州（Colorado）的高山草甸，寻找未被发现的村庄、建筑、采石场和其他公元前13,000年（被认为是人类第一次到达北美的时间）有人在这里生活过的痕迹。但与大多数考古学不同的是，我们发现的线索并不总是埋在土里。有时它们被凝固在冰中。
In mountain ranges across the world, ancient people used snowfields, glaciers and ice patches to hunt, store food and use as bridges over otherwise impenetrable terrain. Just like modern-day trekkers, these ancient hikers occasionally dropped personal items, which, over time, became trapped and preserved in the ice. While we unearth many non-biodegradable, prehistoric stone artefacts, our most fascinating discoveries are so-called “ice patch artefacts” like arrow shafts and twine made of wood, leather and other organic material that would have otherwise decomposed if not entombed in a natural freezer.
在世界各地的山脉中，古人利用雪原和冰川狩猎、储存食物，并作为桥梁使用。就像现代的徒步旅行者一样，古人偶尔也会掉落一些个人物品，随着时间的推移，这些物品会被凝固在冰中保存起来。当我们挖掘出许多不可生物降解的史前石制品时，最吸引人的是所谓“冰封的文物”，比如箭杆和木制编织品、皮革或其他有机材料，如果不是摆在一个天然的冰箱中，它们一定会被分解掉。
These incredibly rare materials not only offer a glimpse into ancient life we rarely get to see, but also hold invaluable clues about everything from the migration patterns of early humans to prehistoric cuisine to how the environment and weather has changed over the millennia.
这些令人难以置信的稀有发现不仅让我们看到了古代生活的一瞥，并且也反映了过去数千年中，环境和气候的变化如何影响了人类的饮食和迁徙。
While ice patches and glaciers possess a trove of scientific information, they are in imminent danger of being lost forever. Because of increasing global temperatures, mountain ice is melting at an unprecedented rate, and these frozen perishable artefacts that have remained preserved for thousands of years are quickly thawing and disintegrating. As a result, searching for ice patch artefacts is both an exciting opportunity, and a desperate race against time.
虽然冰原中蕴含这如此多的科学资料，但它们却面临着永远消失的风险。由于全球气温不断上升，山区的冰正以前所未有的速度融化，这些保存了数千年的冰冻易腐文物正在迅速融化和解体。因此，在冰原中寻找文物既是一件令人兴奋的事，也是在与时间赛跑。
In 2007, Dr Craig Lee from Montana State University discovered an oddly shaped stick melting out of an ice patch at 3,200m in northern Wyoming. After closer analysis, Lee realised that the stick was, in fact, a dart from a throwing spear crafted an astounding 10,300 years ago. To date, it’s the oldest frozen artefact found anywhere in the world. Lee’s unexpected discovery underscored the urgency of recovering these thawing artefacts and has prompted an intensified search to rescue them throughout the Rocky Mountains.
2007年，蒙大拿州立大学（Montana State University）的克雷格·李（Craig Lee）在怀俄明州北部，3200米高的山上发现了一根形状奇特的棍子从融化的冰中出现。经过研究分析，他意识到这根棍子实际上是一根10,300前制作的矛的头部。这是迄今为止世界上发现时间最早的冰冻手工制品。李博士的意外发现也凸显了拯救正在融化中的手工制品的重要性，让人们更抓紧时间在落基山脉寻找、拯救它们。
As more archaeologists have ventured into the North American alpine tundra in the past decade, artefacts ranging from 1,300-year-old arrows to woven wicker baskets to wooden bows have been unearthed, revealing some surprising discoveries. Wood analysis demonstrated that prehistoric groups favoured certain tree species for their arrows; frozen pollen offered detailed paleo-climatic records indicating that tree lines used to be much higher; and seeds from thawing scat showed that, unlike today, American bison once thrived above 3,000m. A vault of new information has become unlocked, but that door will not remain open forever. Given the sheer number of ice patches and their remote locations, we will never be able to reach them all in time.
在过去的十年里，随着更多的考古学家冒险进入北美高山冻土地带，从编织的柳条篮子到1300年前的箭都被发掘了出来，同时也揭开了一些令人惊诧的发现。木材分析表明，史前人类群体偏爱某种木材的箭；冰冻的花粉则提供了古时的气候记录，表明那时的树要比现在高得多；解冻的种子表明，美洲野牛曾经在3000米以上的高度上旺盛生长。新的信息储藏室大门已经被打开，但这扇门并不会永远敞开，考虑到冰川的数量和它们的偏远位置，我们永远不可能及时探索所有这些地方。
In an age where computers and satellites have replaced machetes and pith helmets, many explorers lament that the age of discovery is over. Yet our expeditions echo the approaches of many of North America’s early inhabitants. Because we venture deep into the mountains in some of the most remote locations in the continental US, we need to rely on horses and cowboys to transport gear and food up the alpine slopes. We set up backcountry camps high above turquoise lakes, harvest edible plants from nearby meadows, roast fresh game like elk or bighorn sheep over an open fire and sleep under a sea of stars. In many ways, travelling and living in the footsteps of the ancient people we’re studying helps us to better understand them.
在计算机和卫星取代了大刀和头盔的时代，许多探险家哀叹探索的时代已经结束了。然而，我们的探险与许多北美早期居民的做法遥相呼应：我们深入到美国大陆最偏远的山区，需要依靠马匹和牛仔来运送装备和食物到高山上去。我们在绿松石湖的高处建立野外营地，从附近的草地上采集可食用的植物，烧烤麋鹿或大角羊来吃，睡在星空之下。我们在很多方面都像古人一样生活，这也有助于我们更好地了解他们。
We never know which ice patches may reveal prehistoric items, so our days are spent hiking over passes and exploring ridges to search for clues. When we spot artefacts or animal bones protruding from the melting summer ice, we carefully extract them and wrap them in gauze and plastic to ensure a safe journey on the horse ride home. Back at the lab, we photograph, radiocarbon date and identify the species of each artefact before returning it to a deep-freeze state at a museum or university repository. The thrill of discovering a prehistoric stone bowl or 8,000-year-old spearhead in the field is always exhilarating. But it’s in the laboratory that the fascinating stories of these artefacts begins to appear, such as what meals were prepared in the vessel and where ancient people travelled to acquire the stone for their weapon.
我们永远不知道哪块冰上可能会发现史前的东西，所以我们的时间都用来徒步穿越山口和探索山脊。当我们在融化的夏季冰层中发现手工制品或动物骨头时，会小心翼翼地把它们提取出来，用纱布和塑料包好，确保在骑马回去的路上一切平安。回到实验室，我们拍照，放射性碳测定它们的年代和种类。在野外里发现史前石碗或8000年前的矛头的激动感觉总是令人兴奋的，但在实验室里，我们才能知道它们背后的迷人故事——例如这些容器中装过什么食物，以及古代人们在哪里找到这些石头作为武器。
Despite the countless blisters, frosty evenings and hordes of mosquitos, I’m grateful to call the mountains my office. Every discovery of a whittled stick or a butchered bone at the ice’s edge reminds me of the small role I play in preserving the mountains’ and humanity’s shared history.
尽管探索的过程辛苦万分，历经无数霜冻的夜晚和成群的蚊子侵袭，我还是很感激地将山脉称为我的办公室。每一次在冰山边缘发现一根削过的棍子或被宰杀的动物骨头，都让我想起自己在保护山脉和人类共同历史中所扮演的小角色。
As a young climber, I spent countless days exploring the towering peaks of the Tetons and would have told you that I knew everything about them. But during the past 15 years, I’ve learned that whether you’re in the most familiar or foreign of settings, there is always more to discover about a place. Everywhere in the world has a fascinating and new story to tell, if we only seek to uncover it.
作为一名年轻的登山者，我花了无数的时间去探索提顿山脉，也和你们说过我知道这座山脉的一切。但在过去的15年里，我明白到无论你最熟悉的环境或是在国外陌生的环境，都会有更多东西等待被发现，世界上每个角落都隐藏着无数的迷人故事，只要我们愿意去探索和发现它们。