人类进化历程中的音乐
Music in Human Evolution

作者：Kevin Simler @ 2015-10-16
译者：Veidt（@Veidt)
校对：混乱阈值（@混乱阈值）
来源：Melting Asphalt，http://www.meltingasphalt.com/music-in-human-evolution/

I just finished the strangest, most disconcerting little book. It’s called Why Do People Sing?: Music in Human Evolution by Joseph Jordania.

我刚刚读完了一本让人称奇，又极为令人不安的小书——Joseph Jordania的《为什么人们会唱歌？——人类进化历程中的音乐》。

If the title hasn’t already piqued your interest, its thesis surely will. The thesis is wild, bold, and original, but makes an eerie amount of sense. If true, it would be a revolution — and I don’t use the term lightly — in how we understand the evolution of music, cooperation, warfare, and even religion.

如果这个标题还不足以激起你的兴趣，那么书中的理论一定会让你兴味盎然。该书论点狂野大胆又富于原创，但却合乎情理到可怕的程度。如果成立，它将成为我们理解音乐，人类合作，战争甚至宗教之演化过程的一项革命性理论——我一般不轻易使用“革命性”这个词。

I have my reservations about Jordania’s theory (and his book), but I’ll save them for a later time. As Daniel Dennett once wrote about another remarkable theory:

对于Jordania的理论（以及这本书）我仍有一些保留意见，但我打算把它们留到以后再讨论。正如Daniel Dennett曾就另一项卓越理论所写道的：

I think first it is very important to understand [the] project, to see a little bit more about what the whole shape of it is, and delay the barrage of nitpicking objections and criticisms until we have seen what the edifice as a whole is. After all, on the face of it, [the project] is preposterous… [but] I take it very seriously.

我认为首要的任务是理解这项理论，多看看它的整体是什么样的，在我们完全看清整个理论大厦前，不要急着接二连三地提出那些挑剔的反对和批评。尽管该理论表面看来荒诞不经……但我会很认真地对待它。

These are exactly my feelings about Jordania’s project. Seemingly preposterous, but worth taking very seriously.

对于Jordania的工作，我的感觉也正是如此。它看似荒谬，却值得我们非常认真地对待。

0.STYLIZED FACTS
0.典型事实

I’m going to share Jordania’s theory with you, but first I want to present a set of “stylized facts” — curious, disparate, and nearly inexplicable phenomena that would seem to have little relation to each other. Then I’ll present the theory that (uncannily) links them all together and explains everything.

下面我将与你分享Jordania的理论，但首先，我想向你呈现一组“典型事实”——这是一组奇怪的，完全不同的，而且几乎无法解释的现象，互相之间看起来也没什么联系。之后，我会展示这项能够（以一种不可思议的方式）将它们联系在一起并且解释这一切现象的理论。

OK, brace yourself. Here come the facts:

打起精神，做好准备。让我们来看看这些“典型事实”：

• When our ancestors [1] first moved from the forest to the savannah, we were not yet capable of making tools. But early hominid evolution tended away from a physiology that would have helped us hunt and/or defend ourselves from predators. Our canine teeth receded, we became slower and weaker, and we didn’t develop tough skin (in fact the opposite).
• 当我们的祖先第一次从森林中迁徙到热带稀树草原时，人类还没有获得制造工具的能力。但从生理学上看，早期原始人类的进化却并不利于人们狩猎以及防御捕食者。人类的犬齿退化了，运动变得缓慢，身体也变得更弱，而且也没有进化出坚韧的皮肤（事实上恰恰相反）。
• Lion evolution and migration seems to have mirrored early hominid patterns, both spatiotemporally and (in some ways) behaviorally and morphologically. Lions, for example, are the only social species of cat.
• 狮子的进化以及迁徙模式看起来与早期人类恰好互为镜像，不论从时间和空间上，还是从（某些方面的）行为和形态上说都是如此。举个例子，狮子是唯一一种群居的猫科动物。
• Humans are the only ground-dwelling species that sings. There are over 4000 singing species — mostly birds, but also gibbons, dolphins, whales, and seals. But they all sing from water or the trees. When a bird lands on the ground, it invariably stops singing.
• 人类是唯一一种会唱歌的地栖动物。世界上有超过4000种会唱歌的物种——其中大多数都是鸟类，此外还包括长臂猿，海豚，鲸类和海豹。但是这些物种全都是在水中或者树上唱歌。不论哪种鸟类，一旦降落到陆地上，它都会停止歌唱。
• Of all singing creatures, humans are the only ones who use rhythm.
• 在所有会唱歌的生物中，人类是唯一会使用韵律的。
• When we sing, we almost always dance, even if it’s just nodding along or tapping a foot. Both singing and dancing (whether together or separate) are group activities used across the world in tribal bonding rituals. Isolated ethnic groups have remarkably similar styles of song and dance.
• 当我们唱歌时，我们几乎也总会跳起舞来，即使这种“舞蹈”也许仅仅是随着歌声点头，或者用脚打着节拍。歌唱和舞蹈（不论是同时或是分开进行的）是在世界各地的部落情感强化仪式中广泛使用的集体活动。相互孤立的族群常有着非常相似的歌曲和舞蹈风格。
• Rhythmic chanting and dancing induce trance states.
• 有节律的吟唱和舞蹈会诱导人进入恍惚状态。
• Early hominids quite possibly ate their dead, and (some while later) definitely started burying them. The instinct to preserve a dead human body from mutilation, and then to dispose of it, is fairly universal. E.g. we strive to retrieve corpses even from a battlefield.
• 早期的原始人很有可能食用同类尸体，但（在晚些时候）肯定开始埋葬尸体了。保护尸体不被损毁，将尸体妥善处置，是一种相当普遍的人类本能。一个典型的例证是，人们即使在战场上也会努力将同伴的尸体取回。

I hope you are intrigued. Each of these facts is hard to explain even in isolation. So a theory that can unify and account for all of them will have to be either profound or crazy — or both.

我希望上述事实激发了你的好奇心。这些事实中的每一条即使是孤立地来看也很难解释。一个能对这些事实做出统一解释的理论要么很深刻，要么很疯狂——也许二者兼有。

At this point I’m going to present Jordania’s theory as clearly and comprehensively as I can. I’ll interpolate a bit and add my own explanatory flare, but the ideas come straight out of his book.

接下来我将尽可能清晰而全面地展示Jordania的理论。我会不时插入一些自己的解释性看法，但其中的观点则直接来自于他的著作。

1.HUNTERS OR SCAVENGERS?
1.猎人还是腐食者？

When human ancestors first descended from the trees and stepped out onto the grasslands, they faced two critical problems: acquiring food and defending themselves from predators. We’ll discuss food acquisition in this section and defense in the next section, but as you’ll see they’re linked by a similar mechanism.

当人类祖先第一次从树上下来走进草原时，他们面临着两个至关重要的问题：获取食物以及防御捕食者的捕杀。我们会这一节里讨论食物的获取，之后在下一节里讨论防御问题。但正如你将看到的，这两个问题实际上是由一种类似的机制联系在一起的。

I hadn’t thought deeply about these problems until I read Jordania’s book. I always imagined, naively, that early humans had been “hunter-gatherers.” While this is true of later humans, it’s almost certainly not true of our earliest savannah-dwelling ancestors. Gathering? yes. But hunting, especially big-game hunting, was out of the question. As I mentioned, our earliest ancestors hadn’t yet learned how to make or use tools beyond simple rocks and sticks, and we were fairly weak.

在读到Jordania的书之前，我从来没有深入地思考过这些问题。我总是天真地设想，早期人类是“狩猎-采集者”。虽然之后的人类的确如此，但对于最早生活在热带稀树草原上的人类祖先而言，这几乎是不可能的。他们会采集食物吗？是的。但是狩猎，尤其是大规模的群体狩猎，则是完全不现实的。我之前提到过，除了简单的石块和树枝以外，我们最早的祖先还没有学会如何制造和使用工具，而且人类的身体也相当弱。

Yet we certainly ate meat — the archaeological record is pretty clear on that. So there’s a growing consensus that we were actually scavengers (or perhaps “scavenger-gatherers”).

但是当时的人类显然是吃肉的——在这方面有相当清楚的考古学证据。所以现在学术界有了一种越来越强的共识，认为早期人类实际上是食腐者（或者也可称为“食腐-采集者”）。

Now there are two types of scavenging, two strategies for “carcass acquisition”: passive and confrontational. Passive scavenging occurs when the scavenger comes across an undefended carcass. If the carcass was the result of a natural (non-predatory) death, there will be plenty to eat, assuming the scavenger finds it before putrefaction sets in (about 48 hours).

食腐行为可以分为两类，分别对应着两种不同的获取尸体方式：被动式获取和对抗式获取。当食腐者发现一具无守卫的尸体时，我们称之为被动式食腐。如果尸体是自然死亡（而非被捕食）的结果，就会有大量可供食用的肉，前提是食腐者能在尸体腐烂之前找到它（这个时间窗口约为48小时）。

But even if the carcass was killed and eaten by a predator, there’s going to be some meat left on the bone. And, just as important, inside the bone. Marrow was an excellent source of calories for our early ancestors, and we were in a unique position to access it, since we could use rocks as primitive tools to break the bones open.

但即使尸体被某个掠食者杀死并吃掉，骨头上也会剩下一些肉。而且同样重要的是，在骨头里面也有可供食用的东西。对于我们早期祖先而言，骨髓是一种优质的能量来源，而且人类在获取骨髓方面处于独特的优势地位，因为人类可以将石头作为一种原始工具将骨头砸开。

The archeological record shows bones that were repeatedly smashed with “hammering stones,” as well as bones that had scrape-marks, indicating that we also used sharp stones to carve off some of the clingier meat.

考古学记录显示，有些骨头被反复地用“锤石”敲碎，而有些骨头上则有刮擦的痕迹，这表明人类同样会使用锋利的石头以切下一些粘在骨头上的肉。

Now, confrontational scavenging is where it gets interesting — and also more circumstantial. Confrontational scavenging, also known as power or aggressive scavenging, happens when an animal (or group of animals) comes across a carcass that’s in the process of being eaten, whether by the original predator or another scavenger. In this case, a confrontation ensues, and to the victor go the spoils.

相对来说，对抗式的食腐行为则更有趣，虽然支持证据也更为间接。对抗式食腐也被称为力量式或侵略式食腐，它通常是指当一只（或一群）动物遭遇了一具正在被其他动物（可能是最初的捕食者，也可能是其它食腐者）食用的尸体。在这种情况下，对抗随之而来，而胜者则将获得战利品。

Whether our ancestors practiced confrontational scavenging is hard to determine, given the evidence available to us at this point, but it’s not a crazy idea. It happens all the time in the (non-human) animal kingdom, as when a pack of hyenas scares a lion away from its kill.

通过当前所能获得的证据，我们很难确定人类祖先是否有过对抗式食腐行为，但这并不是一个疯狂的想法。在动物王国（不包括人类）中，对抗式的食腐行为时刻都在发生，例如一群鬣狗会将一头狮子从它杀死的猎物身边吓走。

2.DEFENSE FROM PREDATORS
2.防御捕食者的捕杀

Along with finding food, defense from predators is crucial to the survival of any species, and ours presents a puzzle.

除了寻找食物之外，防御捕食者的捕杀对于任何物种的生存而言都至关重要，而我们祖先在这方面则给我们留下了一个谜题。

We definitely had predators — lions, principally, but also other big cats (jaguars, leopards), as well as hyenas and maybe crocodiles. (Or more accurately, the ancestors of those species, since they’ve been evolving just as we have. Hyena-ancestors, for example, were much larger than their modern descendants.)

很明显，有些动物会捕杀人类——主要是狮子，但也包括其它的大型猫科动物（美洲虎，豹子等），此外，鬣狗，可能还有鳄鱼，也会将人类当作捕猎对象。（更准确地说，是这些动物的祖先，因为和人类一样，这些物种也一直在进化。举例来说，鬣狗的祖先就比它们生活在今天的后代要大得多。）

Physically, early humans were quite weak — and getting weaker with each generation. As I mentioned earlier, our canines were receding and our skin was growing softer. And we were getting bigger, it’s true, but not stronger. Our size developed in service of bipedalism, which made us both weaker and slower(!).

从身体上说，早期人类是很弱的——而且还在一代代地变得更弱。正如我之前所提到的，人类的犬齿在退化，而且皮肤也变得更加柔软。人类的体型在变得更大，这是事实，但并没有变得更强壮。人类的体型是为了适应两足行走而变得更大，但这却让人类的身体变得更弱，也变得更慢。

A chimpanzee, for instance, is roughly twice as strong as a modern human, and can run just as fast if not faster. In the general case, bipedalism results in slower sprinting speeds, even if it increases efficiency (allowing us to walk/run for longer stretches).

例如，黑猩猩身体的强壮程度大约是现代人的两倍，而且并不比人类跑得慢。总体上说，两足行走降低了人类短距离奔跑的速度，即使它的确提升了效率（这让我们能够行走/奔跑更长的距离）。

Across the animal kingdom there are various strategies for evading or defending against predators, known in the literature as antipredator adaptations. Each adaptation defends against one of the four stages of predation: detection, attack, capture, and consumption.

在整个动物王国中，存在许多不同的躲避或防御捕食者捕杀的策略，这些策略在文献中被称为反捕食者适应性。每一种适应性都是为了防御猎食过程中的四个阶段之一：侦查、攻击、捕捉和摄食。

To evade detection, for example, most species pursue a strategy of crypsis, aka hiding. To evade capture, species rely on speed, burrowing, climbing into trees, etc. And to evade consumption, species develop physical defenses like claws, fangs, horns, shells (or at least a tough hide), venom, etc.

例如，为了躲避捕食者的侦查，多数物种都会采用一种保护色策略，或者叫隐藏策略。而不同的物种会依靠速度、挖洞、爬树等不同方式来躲避捕食者的捕捉。为了逃避捕食者的摄食，各物种进化出了多种身体上的防御机制，例如利爪、尖牙、长角、贝壳（或至少是一个坚硬的藏身之所）、毒液等等。

But early humans weren’t doing any of these things. Physiologically, we weren’t getting stronger or faster, or developing sharper claws or teeth or tougher skin. Nor were we trying to hide. Habitual bipedalism has its benefits, but going unnoticed in the grass certainly isn’t one of them.

但是早期人类却没有做到以上的任何一件事情。生理上，人类没有变得更强壮或更快速，也没有进化出尖利的爪牙或强韧的皮肤。人类也没有试图将自己隐藏起来。习惯于两足行走当然有它的好处，但是这却让人类无法在草丛里行走时不被发现。

In fact, we seem to have evolved to become more noticeable, more conspicuous. We grew taller, we sang and made noise (the only animal who sings from the ground), we painted our bodies, and we developed strong body odor. [2]

事实上，人类似乎进化得更加容易引起注意了。人类变得更高，唱歌并且发出噪音（人类是唯一一种会在地上唱歌的动物），在身体上绘上色彩，并且进化出了浓重的体味。[2]

The strategy of being conspicuous is known as aposematism: apo (away from) + sematism (signalling) = counter-signalling. Aposematism is an antipredator adaptation which prevents an attack from happening in the first place, by making it easier for the predator to recognize you as unprofitable.

这种故意引起注意的策略通常被称作“警示信号”（aposematism）：这个词的词根apo-意为“远离”，-sematism则意为“信号”，合起来的意思就是“反向信号”。“警示信号”是一种能从根源上防止捕食者发动攻击的反捕食者适应性策略，它让捕食者很容易地意识到将你作为捕食对象是一件无利可图的事情。

Species who counter-signal (aposematically) abound in nature, but they all have something up their sleeves, so to speak. Being conspicuous is a viable strategy only when you’re advertising an otherwise invisible weapon. Consider the following aposematic species from across the animal kingdom:

自然世界中有许多采取这类（有警示作用的）“反向信号”策略的物种，但是可以说所有这些物种都有自己的杀手锏。只有当你的行为实际上是为了突出某种看不见的武器时，故意引起注意才是一个有效的策略。让我们来看看动物王国中的这些采用“警示信号”策略的物种：

• skunks and zorillas
• 臭鼬和非洲臭鼬
• bees, wasps, hornets, and velvet ants
• 蜜蜂，黄蜂，大黄蜂和蚁蜂
• black widows and redback spiders
• 黑寡妇蜘蛛和红背蜘蛛
• poison dart frogs and fire salamanders
• 箭毒蛙和火蜥蜴
• all manner of snakes, e.g. the coral snake
• 各种各样的蛇，例如珊瑚蛇
• flamboyant cuttlefish
• 火焰乌贼

Each of these species has a powerful defensive weapon — often some kind of venom/poison, but also noxious odors. And most species advertise this with distinctive coloration (bright and high-contrast), but some use other signals. Rattlesnakes and bees use sound, for example, and many species, including zorillas, ‘mark their territory’ using scents. [3]

所有的这些物种都拥有各自强大的防御武器——通常是某种毒液或毒物，也有一些是有毒气体。而其中大多数物种都会通过独特的颜色（艳丽而对比度鲜明的）来给自己的武器打广告，但有些物种也会通过其它信号来达到这个目的。例如，响尾蛇和蜜蜂使用声音，而包括非洲臭鼬在内的许多物种则通过气味来“标识”自己的领地。

Aposematism (being conspicuous) doesn’t help an organism in a single encounter with a predator; in fact it’s a liability. But it helps with repeated encounters. When a predator gets sprayed by a skunk or stung by a bee, it quickly learns to avoid future encounters with all members of the species.

这种（故意引起注意的）“警示信号”策略无法孤立地在一次与捕食者的遭遇中帮助某一个体逃出生天；事实上，这反而是一种拖累。但是一旦与捕食者的遭遇频繁地重复发生，这种策略就能发挥作用。当某个捕食者被臭鼬放出的气体熏到或是被蜂刺蜇过之后，它会迅速地学会在以后尽量避免去碰这些不好惹的物种。

All of this raises a most important question: how did early humans manage to get away with aposematism? What defensive weapons did we have up our sleeves?

所有这些都引出了一个最为重要的问题：早期人类是如何做到通过“警示信号”让捕食者远离自己的？他们到底有什么能够用于防身的“杀手锏”？

The answer probably won’t surprise you: we used stones. It’s how we used them (section 4) that’s so unusual.

答案大概不会让你感到吃惊：人类会使用石器。但不寻常的地方则在于人类使用石器的方式（我们会在第4节讨论这个话题）。

3.STONES
3.石器

Stones were the most fundamental weapon at our disposal — the only means we had of causing actual physical damage to another animal.

石器是人类能够支配的最基础的武器——也是人类唯一能够对其它动物造成物理伤害的方式。

When we first started living on the savannah, we hadn’t yet developed the hand/eye coordination necessary to hunt with stones (or to make and use other tools for that purpose). But self-defense is a much simpler proposition, for a number of reasons.

当人类最初开始在稀树草原上生活时，我们祖先还没有进化出使用石器捕猎所必需的手眼协调能力（或者制造和使用其它工具以进行捕猎的能力）。但由于以下的一些原因，使用石器自卫则是一个简单得多的命题。

First, using stones to hunt requires a lot of force and a lot of dexterity. You need to hit a target that’s moving away from you at high speed, and gravity is not on your side. But defense is different. Defense happens up close. It’s much easier to bash a lion with a large rock when the lion is coming toward you. And bringing the rock down allows gravity to work for you rather than against you.

首先，使用石器捕猎要求很大的力量以及很高的敏捷度。你需要能够准确地打中一个快速离你而去的目标，而且重力也并不站在你这一边。但自我防御则完全不同。通常防御都发生在很近的距离内。当一头狮子向你跑来时，用一块大石头砸中它会变得容易很多。而且将石头从上往下砸的动作也能够让重力助你一臂之力，而不是相反。

Moreover, attack and defense are fundamentally asymmetrical. Like in a lawsuit, where the prosecution assumes the burden of proof, in a hunt the predator assumes the burden of actually killing its prey. But to succeed at defense, you don’t need to kill your would-be predator — you only need to injure it. If a lion or other competitor gets injured while attacking a human, it will flee the scene, opting to lose a meal rather than risk its life by continuing to fight.

除此之外，进攻和防御从根本上说也是两种完全不对称的行为。就像在一场诉讼中，举证的责任是由原告承担的，在一场捕猎中，杀死猎物的重担完全落在了捕食者的肩上。但是要在防御中获胜，你并不需要杀死潜在的捕猎者——你只需要弄伤它就行了。如果一头狮子或者其它捕食者在攻击人的时候受到伤害，它通常会逃离现场，相比于冒着生命危险继续搏斗下去，捕食者显然更愿意选择少吃这一顿。

And finally, defense was easier for early humans because we helped each other. In most of these circumstances (while being attacked and during confrontational scavenging raids), we had group members by our sides, ready to throw their own stones if others in the group became incapacitated.

最后，对于早期人类而言，防御捕食者之所以变得更容易，还因为人类会互相帮助。在绝大多数情况下（当遇到捕食者的攻击，以及在对抗式食腐的遭遇战中），人类拥有众多一起战斗的同伴，如果同伴中有人丧失了行动能力，他们时刻都准备着掷出手中的石头以帮助他。

Cooperation was indeed our biggest advantage, and our early ancestors refined it, quite literally, to a high art.

事实上，协作才是人类所拥有的最大优势，而我们的祖先则将这个优势发扬光大，毫不夸张地说，他们将协作上升到了艺术的高度。

4.AUDIO-VISUAL INTIMIDATION DISPLAY
4.恐吓性视听展示

Here, finally, is the crux of Jordania’s thesis. His claim is that early humans developed a unique defense he calls the Audio-Visual Intimidation Display:

到这里，我们终于触及了Jordania理论中最关键的部分。他的观点是，早期人类发展出了一种被他称作“恐吓性视听展示”的独特防御机制。

My suggestion is that our ancestors turned loud singing into a central element of their defence system against predators. They started using loud, rhythmic singing and shouting accompanied by vigorous, threatening body movements and object throwing to defend themselves from predators. [4]

我对此的看法是，人类祖先将大声歌唱的行为转化为了对抗捕食者的防御机制中的一个核心要素。他们使用大声而富有节律的歌唱和叫喊，伴以有力而富有威胁性的身体动作以及向对方投掷各种物品来防御捕食者的进攻。

Before we go any further, I’d like you to see the AVID in action. Amazingly, some ‘primitive’ ethnic groups have maintained an AVID-like tradition into modern times. The kailao war dance of the Wallisian people and the Samoan cibi are two examples, but the best-documented tradition is the haka of the New Zealand Māori.

在我们更进一步之前，我希望你能够看看“恐吓性视听展示”（AVID）这种行为是什么样子的。令人惊讶的是，一些“原始的”人类族群将此类传统保留到了现代。瓦利斯群岛原住民的kailao战舞和萨摩亚人的cibi战舞是其中的两个例子，而被记载得最全面的此类传统则是新西兰毛利人的haka战舞。

Wikipedia describes the haka as

维基百科对haka战舞的描述如下：

a traditional ancestral war cry, dance or challenge from the Māori people of New Zealand. It is a posture dance performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted accompaniment….

新西兰毛利人的一种继承自祖先的传统战争呼喊、舞蹈或挑战形式。这是一种由群体表演的姿势性舞蹈，伴之以有力的动作和脚步的冲踏以及有节奏的大声喊叫…

Various actions are employed in the course of a performance, including facial contortions such as showing the whites of the eyes and the poking out of the tongue, and a wide variety of vigorous body actions such as slapping the hands against the body and stamping of the feet. As well as chanted words, a variety of cries and grunts are used.

整个表演过程中包含了多种行为，包括面部表情的扭曲——例如翻出眼白和伸出舌头，以及一系列有力的身体动作——例如用手掌拍击身体和脚步的冲踏。还有高声喊出的话语，一系列的呼喊和低沉的咕哝声都被用于其中。

For a demonstration we now turn to YouTube. Here’s a video of a haka by the New Zealand army, showing just how visually and auditorily intimidating it could be:

现在让我们上YouTube来看看haka战舞的演示。下面是一段新西兰军队表演的haka战舞，这段视频充分显示了这种战舞在视觉和听觉上具有多么强的恐吓力量：

https://youtu.be/-rDoV0EBu44

And here’s a more traditional version:

下面这段视频则记录了一段更传统的haka战舞：

https://youtu.be/BI851yJUQQw

The point of the AVID (of which the haka is the best-known example) is:

“恐吓性视听展示”（haka战舞是其中最富盛名的例子）的意义在于：

• To intimidate competitors with loud sounds. Shouting in unison is clearly the best way to do this, because the result is far louder than any sound an individual human can make. But clapping, slapping, stomping, and banging rocks together would have added nicely to the cacophony.
• 用响亮的声音来恐吓对手。同时发出喊声显然是最好的办法，因为这种喊声比单独的一个人所能发出的声音要响亮得多。而同时伴以击掌，拍击身体，跺脚以及敲击石头这些动作则能够恰如其分地为这种刺耳的声音添油加醋。
• To intimidate competitors visually. The synchronized movements, body paint, and bizarre gestures (including facial expressions) would confuse and intimidate even the fiercest competitors.
• 在视觉上恐吓对手。这些同步的动作，身体上的绘画，以及奇怪的姿势（包括面部的奇怪表情）能够迷惑和恐吓甚至是那些最强悍的对手。
• To project the image of a single, powerful organism. As Jordania puts it, “rhythmically well-organized group vocalizations [and movements] send a strong message to the predator about the unity and determination of the group.” Although the group is composed of individual humans, during an AVID the group acts as if it were a single, multiheaded, many-armed creature. In some ways it’s a fiction, but as far as the competitor is concerned, if the movements and actions are sufficiently coordinated, the group becomes a unitary beast for all intents and purposes.
• 为了呈现一个强大的单一有机体的形象。如同Jordania所说，“富有节奏的有序的集体发声（和动作）向捕食者传递着关于这个群体的团结和决心的强烈信息。”尽管群体是由单独的个人组成的，在“恐吓性视听展示”的过程中，这样一个群体所表现出的行为就好像它是一个有着多个脑袋和无数只手的单一生物个体。从某种角度看来，这是一种欺骗行为，但是对于这个群体的对手来说，如果这种动作和行为足够地协调，这个群体实际上就成为了一只整一的怪兽。

Remember, the AVID would have been used for confrontational scavenging as well as defense against predators — and would have included rocks as physical weapons to fall back on when the intimidation display wasn’t perfectly effective as a non-contact defense.

记住，“恐吓性视听展示”除了会在防御捕食者的攻击时使用之外，也同样适用于对抗性食腐的场景——而这种恐吓性的展示行为毕竟只是一种非接触的防御行为，一旦它不能完美地发挥作用，人们还需要求助于石头这样的物理性武器。

5.BATTLE TRANCE
5.“战斗恍惚”状态

Jordania also suggests that humans evolved a specific state of consciousness — the battle trance — to go along with the Audio-Visual Intimidation Display. This state has several characteristics:

Jordania还认为，伴随着“恐吓性视听展示”行为，人类进化出了一种被称为“战斗恍惚”的特殊意识状态。这种状态有如下的几个特征：

• Analgesia and aphobia — no pain and no fear.
• 痛感缺失和恐惧缺失——感受不到疼痛和恐惧。
• Neglect of individual survival instincts.
• 忽视了个体的生存本能。
• Loss of individual identity and acquisition of a collective identity.
• 失去个人身份意识并获得集体的身份意识。

Central to the battle trance is the notion of collective or group identity:

“战斗恍惚”状态的核心是集体（或群体）认同的概念：

Like in a well-established combat unit, where in the heat of the battle one can sacrifice his own life to save a friend’s life, human ancestors developed the feel of group identity. The feel of group identity is based on the total trust and dedication of each member of the group to the common interest.

在一个稳固的作战单位中，当战斗进行得如火如荼时，一个战士可以为了拯救伙伴的生命牺牲自己。同样的，人类祖先也进化出了一种类似的集体认同感。集体认同感建立在对集体中所有成员的完全信任和对于集体共同利益的奉献精神之上。

Group identity kicks in when there is a critical situation, a mortal danger for survival of the group or any of its members. In such moments, the noble principle of ‘One for all, all for one’ rules any individual self-preserving instinct, fear and pain.

在某个生死攸关的时刻，当整个集体或其中某个成员的生存处于危险之中，集体身份意识就会发挥作用。在这样的时刻，“我为人人，人人为我”这种高尚的原则会超越任何个体的自我保护本能、恐惧和疼痛，主导集体成员的行为。

This state of consciousness may have originally evolved for parents (especially mothers) to defend their children when threatened, but it was repurposed for group defense and confrontational scavenging. And in the process, we developed a new trigger for it: rhythmic chanting and synchronized body movements.

这种意识状态可能最初是从父母（尤其是母亲）在受到威胁时保护孩子的本能中进化出来的，但之后被用于集体防御和对抗性食腐行为中。而在这个过程中，人类发展出了一种新的触发这种状态的机制：有节奏的吟唱和同步化的肢体动作。

Evolution supplied powerful neurological mechanisms to make this feeling a positive experience. Going into group identity brings the most exhilarating feelings to every member of the group. Every member of the group feels bigger, feel stronger, and virtually feels immortal…. Group members in such an altered state of mind, when they share total trust with each other, emotionally believe that the group cannot be defeated.

进化为将这种感觉变成一种积极的体验提供了强大的神经机制。进入集体身份意识状态为集体中的所有成员带来了一种最为振奋的感觉。集体中的所有人都感觉到自己变得更大，更强，并且几乎感觉到自己是不朽的……在这意识状态中，集体成员分享着对彼此的完全信任，他们会在感情上相信这个集体是不可战胜的。

This unique altered state of mind is supported (and most likely caused) by the powerful neurological substances such as endorphins and oxytocin, which are momentarily released in the brain when a critical survival situations arises. As the neurological substances are released into the brain, feelings of pain and fear are blocked, and total trust and exhilaration of being part of a supernaturally strong unit becomes overwhelming.

这种特别的意识状态是由诸如脑内啡（endorphin）和催产素（oxytocin）这类强大的神经物质所支持的（而且非常可能是由它们引发的），当某种生死攸关的状况出现时，大脑中会暂时释放出这些物质。一旦它们被释放到大脑中，疼痛和恐惧的感觉就被阻断了，而成为某个超自然的强大整体的一部分所带来的完全信任和振奋感则变得不可阻挡。

Actual combat isn’t as central to our lives in the 21st century, but the battle trance and feelings of collective identity still echo in many of our modern rituals of solidarity, which I wrote about last year, and they’re particularly pronounced in religion/politics and team/spectator sports.

真实的战斗在我们21世纪的生活中已经变得不那么重要了，但正如我在去年曾写道过的，在许多现代的团体性仪式中，我们仍然可以找到“战斗恍惚”和集体身份意识状态的影子。在宗教性/政治性活动以及集体性/观赏性体育项目中，它们表现得尤其明显。

6.CANNIBALISM (AND BURIAL) OF THE DEAD
6.吃掉（并埋葬）同类的尸体

As if Jordania’s theory didn’t cover enough ground already, he has one last surprise in store for us. He claims that early humans practiced cannibalism of their dead as a key part of their comprehensive antipredator strategy.

即使到了这里，Jordania的理论似乎仍然意犹未尽，他还为我们准备了最后一个惊喜。他声称，早期人类吃掉自己同类尸体这种行为实际上是他们整体的防御捕食者捕杀策略中非常重要的一环。

If you recall from section 2, the goal of aposematism is to advertise that, as a piece of prey, you are decidedly unprofitable for the predator. If a predator can easily recognize you (and other members of your species), and remembers getting burned during past encounters, it will quickly learn to stop attacking you in the first place.

回想一下我们在第2节里所提到的，“警示信号”这种策略的目的是让捕食者确认将你作为食物是一件无利可图的事情。如果捕食者能够轻易地认出你（以及你同类的其它成员），并且记起在之前的教训，它就会迅速意识到从一开始就不应该向你发起攻击。

Given this strategy, it’s very important not to let the lions (or any other predator) get away with killing and eating a human. The more our ancestors were able to reinforce the message that humans are not a (good) meal, the safer they would be across repeated encounters. This was especially important for early humans because, unlike an actually poisonous species, human meat is worth eating, if a predator can get away with it.

在这种策略之下，不要让狮子（或者其它的任何捕食者）成功地杀死并吃掉人类就变得非常重要。人类祖先们越是能够强化“人类不是好食物”这条信息，在与捕食者们不断的重复相遇中他们就会越安全。对于早期人类来说这一点尤其重要，因为人并不是一种有毒性的物种，如果捕食者能够成功地捕杀人类，人肉其实是很有食用价值的。

This implies a heavy selection pressure for the following behaviors among our ancestors:

这就意味着，自然选择在引导人类祖先做出如下一些行为方面施加了很重的压力：

• If a predator attacks during a confrontation, make sure it gets injured.
• 如果捕食者在对抗中发动了攻击，必须保证将它弄伤。
• If a predator manages to kill one of your fellow humans, don’t let it eat. Retrieve the body of your fallen comrade or your whole tribe will be in danger.
• 如果捕食者成功地杀死了你的同类，不要让它吃掉尸体。将你死去同伴的尸体弄回来，否则你的整个部落都将处于危险之中。
• When a human dies naturally, make sure the corpse is properly disposed of. The corpse is a liability because a predator will associate even a scavenged meal (of human meat) with ‘profitability’.
• 当一个人自然死亡，必须保证尸体被以一种适当的方式处理掉。人类尸体实际上会成为一种负担，因为即使是一顿腐肉（人肉）大餐也会让捕食者认为吃人肉是有利可图的。

None of this implies that our ancestors had to practice cannibalism of their dead. Any means of keeping human meat out of the mouths of predators would have been effective. But there’s some evidence that suggests cannibalism (stone scrapings on human bones similar to the scrapings on the bones of other animals), and if calories were hard to come by, it might have been an ecological necessity.

上面的任何一点都不意味着人类的祖先必须吃掉同类的尸体。任何一种不让人肉落入捕食者口中的方法都是有效的。但是一些证据表明人类的确会吃掉同类的尸体（人骨上和其它动物的骨头上都有类似的的石器划痕），而且如果能量并不是那么容易获取，吃掉同类尸体可能也是一种生态上的必要做法。

CONCLUSION
结论

There’s so much more to say about this theory, but I’ll save most of it for another time.

关于Jordania的这个理论，可说的还有很多，但我会把它们留到以后。

I’d just like to end by showing how some our beliefs and behaviors take on new significance in light of Jordania’s theory, especially those that relate to how we handle the bodies of our dead.

我只是希望通过展示Jordania的理论能够如何为人类的一些信仰和行为赋予新的意义来结束这篇文章，特别是那些与我们处理同类尸体的方式相关的部分。

Funerary traditions vary widely around the world, but all have one thing in common: disposal of the body. Mechanisms include burial, entombment, mummification, burial at sea, sky burial [5], and ritual cannibalism, and even more exotic mechanisms like hanging coffins or tree burial.

世界各地的葬礼传统差异非常大，但是所有这些传统都有一个共同的特征：将尸体处理掉。处理尸体的机制包括土葬、墓葬、干尸化、海葬、天葬以及食人仪式，甚至还存在一些更加奇异的机制，例如悬棺葬和树葬等。

The common reasons given for disposal practices are all public-health-related, but intentional burial is at least 225,000 years old. Of course our ancestors wouldn’t want a corpse rotting in their camp, but there’s quite a leap from disposal to burial. Why not just drag the corpse away from camp and expose it to the elements?

通常人们对于这些处理尸体方式的解释都与公共卫生相关，但是人类从至少22.5万年前就开始有意识地埋葬尸体了。我们的祖先们当然不会希望尸体在他们的营地中腐烂，但是从处理掉尸体到埋葬尸体是一个不小的飞跃。他们为什么不只是简单地把尸体拖到远离营地的地方然后让它自然腐烂呢？

Jordania’s theory doesn’t predict how exactly we should dispose of our dead, but it predicts that we should care an awful lot about it (i.e. that it should be something sacred), and that we should be especially concerned that the body doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. In Paleolithic times, this ensured that our ancestors retrieved the bodies of their comrades when they were killed by predators.

Jordania的理论并没有对人类应该如何处理尸体做出具体的预言，但是它预测了人类应该对处理尸体的方式给予高度重视（例如，它应该是一种神圣的仪式），而且人类需要特别注意不能让尸体落入那些它不应该落入的对象手里。在石器时代，这意味着我们祖先会将他们被杀死的同伴尸体从捕食者那里抢回来。

But you can see vestiges of this in historic times — e.g. in our concern for salvaging bodies of the war dead. Mutilating or otherwise desecrating the war dead is an ancient practice, a ghastly way for the victor to show utter dominance over the loser.

但在历史上的各个时期中，你都能看到这种做法的痕迹——例如在战争中人们对于寻回战死者尸体的关切。毁尸或是以其它方式亵渎敌方战死者的尸体是一种古老的传统，这是一种胜者用以展示对失败者的完全统治的可怕方式。

And finally, Jordania’s theory helps explain the religious nature of our funerary practices. Burial has always been a quintessentially religious practice. For example, we date the earliest religious behavior in our ancestors by when they started burying their dead. But religions are fundamentally about the living — a set of beliefs and practices that relate to collective identity and tribal cohesion.

最后，Jordania的理论还能够帮助解释人类葬礼活动的宗教性。葬礼一直是一项典型的宗教活动。例如，我们总是将人类祖先最早的宗教行为追溯到他们开始埋葬同类尸体的时刻。但是宗教从本质上说是关于活着的人的——它是一系列与集体身份意识和部落凝聚力相关的信仰和实践。

Why do religions care about the disposal of corpses? This has always puzzled me. It’s always seemed like such a mundane concern. When someone dies, that should be the end of what we care about, and removing the body should be no more sacred than taking out the trash. Chimpanzees, for instance, can perceive when another chimp passes away (and mourn), but they soon lose interest in the body.

为什么宗教会关注处理处理尸体的方式？我长久以来都被这个问题困扰着。因为对尸体的处理看起来总是更像一个世俗的问题。当一个人死去，我们对于他的关注也应该随之结束了，而将尸体处理掉这件事情并不应该比我们清除垃圾的行为更加神圣。例如，当同类死去时，黑猩猩会对此有所感知（并感到悲伤），但是它们会迅速失去对同类尸体的兴趣。

But if Jordania is right, it’s no coincidence that death rituals are intimately bound up with collective identity, because they’re two parts of the same system.

但如果Jordania是对的，那么与死亡相关的仪式会与集体身份意识天然地联系在一起就并不是巧合了，因为它们实际上是从属于同一个体系的两个部分。

————————————

Update 2015/10/16. For the record, I don’t think Jordania’s theory explains (or even tries to explain) the lyrical aspects of music — only rhythm. But it’s the only plausible account I’ve read that explains how music may have helped us survive. There’s always the mate-selection hypothesis, of course.

更新于2015年10月16日。郑重声明，我并不认为Jordania的理论解释了（甚至仅仅是试图解释）音乐的抒情部分——他的理论所解释的仅仅是音乐的韵律部分。但这是我所读到过的唯一能够合理地解释音乐是如何帮助人类生存下来的理论。当然，关于这方面的理论还有配偶选择假说。

Endnotes
尾注

[1] human ancestors. I’m going to write about “human ancestors” and “early humans” — or sometimes simply “us” — knowing that there are more precise terms to describe the different stages (and branches) of our evolutionary path. Please forgive me — I’m not particularly steeped in the distinctions, and I doubt many of my readers are either.

[1] 人类祖先。在下面我将会经常使用“人类祖先”以及“早期人类”——有时也会仅仅使用“我们”这个代词——来指代人类进化道路上的不同阶段（以及分支），虽然我知道还有更加精确的术语来描述它，但请原谅我在这里没有使用它们，因为我并不觉得这些术语之间的差异有多么重要，而且我怀疑我的读者中许多人也和我有同感。

[2] singing, body painting, body odor. It’s unclear whether early humans actually sang habitually, painted their bodies, or had B.O., but modern humans certainly do, and there’s a case to be made for our ancestors as well. Red ochre is noted as far back as 100,000 years ago, but earlier humans could easily have used simpler preparations like blood or berries, which would have left no trace in the archeological record.

[2] 歌唱，体绘，和体味。现在仍不清楚早期人类是否会习惯性地歌唱、在身体上绘画、或者有体味，但现代人身上显然的确存在这些特点，而对于我们祖先而言，也的确存在这方面的可能性。氧化铁作为一种红色颜料最早可以追溯到十万年前，但早期人类也许能够轻易地使用血液和浆果这些更简单的颜料，而这些则并不会在考古学记录上留下痕迹。

[3] aposematism. A particularly interesting example is stotting — when a gazelle springs into the air by lifting all four feet off the ground simultaneously. Stotting is an aposematic display because (1) it makes the gazelle more visible, but (2) it’s an honest signal of unprofitability. By stotting, a gazelle signals to a potential predator, “I’m in peak physical condition. Don’t both chasing me, because I can easily outrun you.”

[3] “警示信号”策略。这方面一个特别有趣的例子是“跳跑”——这指的是羚羊四蹄同时离地，将身体弹到空中。“跳跑”之所以是一种具有警示信号的策略，主要是因为（1）它让羚羊更容易被看见，（2）这是一种真实地表明向羚羊发动攻击无利可图的信号。通过“跳跑”的动作，羚羊向潜在的捕食者发出了这样一个信号，“我的身体状态正处在巅峰。不用费工夫来追我了，因为我可以轻易地跑赢你。”

[4] Audio-Visual Intimidation Display. I’m taking a couple liberties here. For one, Jordania calls it an “intimidating” display, but I prefer the noun form. But more substantively, Jordania lumps our morphological changes (bipedalism, hair, etc.) into the AVID, whereas I’m presenting the AVID as just the behavioral part (rhythmic chanting and dancing).

[4] “恐吓性视听展示”。在这里我有两处自由发挥的地方。其一是Jordania在表达“恐吓性”这个意思时实际上使用的是intimidating这个词，但是我觉得使用名词形式更好一些。而更具实质意义的一点区别则是，Jordania将人类的一些形态学变化（例如双足行走，毛发等）也归入了“恐吓性视听展示”的范畴，而我仅仅对“恐吓性视听展示”的行为部分（有节奏地喊叫和舞蹈）进行了说明。

[5] sky burial. Yes, during a sky burial we let another animal eat our corpses, but they are always scavenging birds (e.g. vultures), never a potential predator. See also Dakhma for the Zoroastrian tradition.

[5] 天葬。在天葬仪式中人类的确让别的动物吃掉了同类的尸体，但是这类动物都是腐食性的鸟类（例如秃鹫），而从来不会是某种潜在的捕食者。关于这个问题，可参考Dakhma对于琐罗亚斯德教传统的论著。

（编辑：辉格@whigzhou）

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——海德沙龙·翻译组，致力于将英文世界的好文章搬进中文世界——

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