含有〈人类学〉标签的文章(54)

[译文]数数能力的进化

社会是如何学会数到10的
How societies learn to count to 10

作者:Michael Erard @ 2015-9-25
译者:Veidt(@Veidt)
校对:混乱阈值(@混乱阈值)
来源:AAAS,http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2015/09/how-societies-learn-count-10

In some traditional cultures, counting is as easy as one, two, three—because it stops there: Their languages have no words for higher numerals, and instead simply use varieties of words like “many.” But over time some societies acquired higher numbers, as the major languages spoken on the planet t(more...)

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社会是如何学会数到10的 How societies learn to count to 10 作者:Michael Erard @ 2015-9-25 译者:Veidt(@Veidt) 校对:混乱阈值(@混乱阈值) 来源:AAAS,http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2015/09/how-societies-learn-count-10 In some traditional cultures, counting is as easy as one, two, three—because it stops there: Their languages have no words for higher numerals, and instead simply use varieties of words like “many.” But over time some societies acquired higher numbers, as the major languages spoken on the planet today must have done long ago. 在一些传统文化中,计数这件事就像数1,2,3这么简单——因为在这些文化中,计数到3就到头了。他们的语言中没有相应的词语来表示更大的数字,而只是简单地使用各种类似“很多”这样的词语。但随着时间的推移,一些社会获得了使用更大数字的能力,就像今天世界上的主要语言必然在很早之前就已经做到的一样。 Now, a new study of an Australian language family reveals how languages add, and sometimes lose, higher numbers—and how some languages lasted for thousands of years without them. 日前,一项关于澳洲语系的最新研究揭示了语言是如何获得(在某些时候也会丢失)更大数字的,以及一些语言是如何在没有这些更大数字的状态下延续了数千年的。 For some cultures, big numbers just don’t make sense. Take the shepherd who knows that he has the right number of sheep not by counting them one by one but by grasping the gestalt of his flock. That may sound strange to people from other cultures, says Patience Epps, a linguist at the University of Texas, Austin. 对于某些文化而言,大数字并没有什么意义。例如,牧羊人并不是通过逐一数羊来判断羊群数目是否是正确的,而是通过掌握其羊群的完型(gestalt)来做到这一点。对于来自其他文化的人们而言,这听起来可能很奇怪,来自德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的语言学家Patience Epps说。 Indeed, she says she’s often asked by incredulous Americans how people with few numerals know, for instance, how many children they have. When she asks this of the Amazonian tribe she works with, “they look at me like it’s a weird question. They list the names, they count on their fingers, but they don’t go around with a quantity in their heads,” she says. 她还表示,自己的确经常被充满怀疑精神的美国人问起诸如此类的问题:那些只能使用有限几个数字的人是怎么知道他们有几个孩子的?当她向和她一起工作的亚马逊部落民问起这个问题时,“他们盯着我看,似乎这对他们来说是个很奇怪的问题。他们会列举孩子们的名字,用手指数孩子的个数,但在他们脑海里并不存在一个具体的数字,”她说道。 But once a society becomes complex enough to require more abstract counting, higher numerals are needed. Amazonian languages add numerals when groups that don’t know or trust each other begin trading goods and need to track exchanges more closely, Epps says. Something like this must have happened in familiar languages many millennia ago. 可一旦某个社会变得足够复杂,要求更多的抽象计数时,就需要更大数字了。当并不互相了解或信任的群体开始交易物品,并且需要更加密切地跟踪这些交易时,亚马逊原住民的语言中就加入了新的数字,Epps表示。在我们所熟悉的语言中,数千年前也一定发生过类似的事情。 Looking at how languages with only a few numerals add or lose them could provide insight into how humans build numeral systems. But uncovering these patterns of cultural evolution required data from many related languages with small numeral systems over a long period of time. 通过研究那些只有有限几个数字的语言是如何添加或者丢失数字的,我们可以洞悉人类是如何构建数字系统的。但想要揭示这些文化演化的模式,我们还需要来自多种互相关联的具有小型数字体系的语言的长期数据。 Enter the Pama-Nyungan language family, which once extended across most of Australia. It contains about 300 languages that are currently spoken by about 25,000 people, though in the past they may have numbered as many as 2 million. Most of these languages have numeral systems that stop at five. 现在让我们走进Pama-Nyungan语系,该语系曾一度扩张到了澳洲的大部分地区。它包含了大约300种不同的语言,当前大约还有25000人在使用这些语言,而在过去,使用这些语言的人数或许曾达到200万之多。这个语系中大部分语言的计数系统都没有比5更大的数字。 Yale University historical linguist Claire Bowern collected current and historical data about these languages, many of which are no longer spoken. Together with undergraduate researcher Kevin Zhou, she reconstructed how numerals in the language family evolved over about 6500 years, borrowing a method from evolutionary biology to explore how the Pama-Nyungan languages were related to each other and also how they changed over time. 耶鲁大学历史语言学家Claire Bowern收集了有关这些语言的当前和历史数据,而其中的大部分语言在今天已不再有人使用了。她和本科生研究者Kevin Zhou一起,还原了过去大约6500年里数字在该语系中的演化过程,借用一种进化生物学的方法探索了Pama-Nyungan语系中的各种语言是如何关联在一起的,以及如何随时间演变的。 The researchers plugged their data into a computer model, which then generated the most likely family tree for all the languages’ numeral systems. Then they tracked how those systems added or lost numerals within the tree. 两位研究者将他们获得的数据导入一个计算机模型中,该模型为所有这些语言的计数系统生成一棵可能性最大的“家族树”。之后,研究者们会追踪在这棵“家族树”中的这些计数系统是如何加入或是丢失数字的。 The upper limits of these Australian numeral systems most often varied between three, four, and five, the team reports this month in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Over time, even small numeral systems sometimes lost a numeral or two, but they mainly gained numerals—yet not by plodding up the number line, one numeral after another. 该研究团队在本月的《英国皇家学会学报B刊》上发表的研究结果显示,在这些澳洲计数系统中,数字的上界通常在3,4和5之间变化。随着时间的推移,即使是很小的计数系统有时也会丢失一个或者两个数字,但大多数情况下它们都会获得更多的数字——而这并不是通过沿着数轴缓慢地一个个增加数字来完成的。 Surprisingly, they tended to acquire numerals in bunches, leaping from five numerals to 10 or 20, for example. The numeral five was often the tipping point—once a system reached five, it was likely to add more numerals, up to 20. As a result, numeral systems with five as an upper limit are rare in Pama-Nyungan languages. 令人吃惊的是,这些系统倾向于一次性获得多个数字,例如从5个数字直接跳跃到10个或20个。数字5通常会成为引爆点——一旦一个计数系统达到了5,它就很有可能会加入更多的数字,直到20。而结果就是在Pama-Nyungan语系的语言中,很少有语言的计数系统的上界是5。 “This is surprising, given the predominance of fingers and toes as things to count,” Bowern notes. Adding or losing the numeral four was the most frequent change. (The words for “four” were most often composed out of words for “two,” not by creating or borrowing a new word that means “four,” showing how the numeral systems evolved.) “这个现象让人感到意外,尤其是考虑到手指和脚趾作为计数工具的主导地位,”Bowern评论道。而加入或是丢失数字4则是这些系统中最频繁发生的变化。(在这些语言中,表示“4”的词通常都是由表示“2”的词合成的,而不是来自创造或借用一个意为“4”的新词语,这也展现了这些数字系统的演化方式。) Bowern thinks that numerals were added in clusters for practical reasons: If you need to count above five, you probably need to go higher than seven or eight as well. And she speculates that perhaps a cognitive shift occurs at about five. “Once you generalize beyond five or so, it becomes easier to generalize to an infinite system.” Bowern认为数字以集群的方式被加入语言中是出于一些实际的原因:如果你需要数到5以上,那么你很可能也同样需要数到7或者8以上。同时她推测,一个认知上的变化会在5这个数值附近发生。“一旦你形成了超过5左右的数字概念,那么形成一个无限计数系统就变得更容易了。” “This is the kind of historical linguistics using computational methods that gives me a lot of confidence,” said Brian Joseph, a historical linguist at Ohio State University, Columbus, adding that “there are a lot of nonlinguists who apply this methodology to data that they don’t seem to control or understand.” “这些采用计算分析方法的历史语言学研究给了我很多信心,”来自位于哥伦布市的俄亥俄州立大学历史语言学家Brian Joseph说道。他还表示“有很多并非语言学家的研究者将这种方法应用在了一些看起来超出他们的掌控或理解的数据上。” “These conclusions seem sound to me,” agrees Russell Gray of the University of Auckland in New Zealand and director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, “and remind us that cultural evolution doesn't always proceed incrementally.” “这些结论在我看来很合理,”新西兰奥克兰大学的Russell Gray对这项研究结果表示赞同,他同时还担任位于德国耶拿的马克斯·普朗克人类历史科学研究所的主任,“这也提醒我们,文化的演化并不总是以逐一递增的方式进行的。” (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——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——

超越邓巴数#1:规模局限的含义

超越邓巴数#1:规模局限的含义
辉格
2015年9月8日

人类学家罗宾·邓巴(Robin Dunbar)提出过一个著名理论,大意是说,每个人与之维持持久关系的熟人,数量最多不超过200,通常只有100多;所谓熟人,不仅是指你认识这个人(对此常存在误解),更是指你记住了和他的交往历史,以及他和你认识的其他人之间的关系;这一数量限制,后来被称为邓巴数(Dunbar’s number)。

在邓巴看来,造成这一限制的,是人类认知能力的局限:尽管一百多看起来不是很大的数字,但两两关系的数量却可以非常庞大,而且随着人数增长,关系数量将指数式的膨胀,所以尽管我们的大脑已经比黑猩猩大了三四倍,也很难处理更庞大的关系网络和交往历史了;况且,社会关系只是我们面临的诸多认知任务之一,虽然对人类来说它是非常重要的一类。

受制于这样的认知局限,人类不得不以两种截然不同的方式对待他人:对熟知者,我们会把他当作有血有肉的特殊个体对待,会关注他的喜好和秉性,揣摩他的动机和意图,并以此决定如何与他交往和相处;相反,对半生不熟者或陌生人,我们会简单的做类型化处理:归类、贴标签,凭借刻板印象迅速决定如何相待。

用计算主义的话说,人类认知系统中处理社会关系的模块,有着两套相互独立的算法,用于处理熟识关系的那套,会为每个交往对象单独建模,据此预测其行为,而另一套则只对每种关系类型建模,具体运用时,将个体对象作类型识别后套入其中一个模型,便得出判断。

果若如此,我们就容易理解某些社会心理现象了:比如许多人持有种族偏见,但这种偏见常常并不妨碍他拥有该种族的朋友;再如,当一个人进入文化迥异(more...)

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超越邓巴数#1:规模局限的含义 辉格 2015年9月8日 人类学家罗宾·邓巴([[Robin Dunbar]])提出过一个著名理论,大意是说,每个人与之维持持久关系的熟人,数量最多不超过200,通常只有100多;所谓熟人,不仅是指你认识这个人(对此常存在误解),更是指你记住了和他的交往历史,以及他和你认识的其他人之间的关系;这一数量限制,后来被称为邓巴数([[Dunbar's number]])。 在邓巴看来,造成这一限制的,是人类认知能力的局限:尽管一百多看起来不是很大的数字,但两两关系的数量却可以非常庞大,而且随着人数增长,关系数量将指数式的膨胀,所以尽管我们的大脑已经比黑猩猩大了三四倍,也很难处理更庞大的关系网络和交往历史了;况且,社会关系只是我们面临的诸多认知任务之一,虽然对人类来说它是非常重要的一类。 受制于这样的认知局限,人类不得不以两种截然不同的方式对待他人:对熟知者,我们会把他当作有血有肉的特殊个体对待,会关注他的喜好和秉性,揣摩他的动机和意图,并以此决定如何与他交往和相处;相反,对半生不熟者或陌生人,我们会简单的做类型化处理:归类、贴标签,凭借刻板印象迅速决定如何相待。 用计算主义的话说,人类认知系统中处理社会关系的模块,有着两套相互独立的算法,用于处理熟识关系的那套,会为每个交往对象单独建模,据此预测其行为,而另一套则只对每种关系类型建模,具体运用时,将个体对象作类型识别后套入其中一个模型,便得出判断。 果若如此,我们就容易理解某些社会心理现象了:比如许多人持有种族偏见,但这种偏见常常并不妨碍他拥有该种族的朋友;再如,当一个人进入文化迥异的陌生社会,起初往往会遭遇刻板化的对待,但时间长了,那些和他建立起熟识关系的人,就会改变态度。 这两种交往模式,在我们的称谓方式中也留下了鲜明痕迹;对于和自己较亲密的人,我们会以名字相称,连名带姓就显得见外,只称姓就更疏远;因为名字是标识个体的,而姓氏则是标识家族、宗族或更大世系群的;昵称则是更亲密的称谓,因为正式名字是给所有需要的人用的,所以最亲密的关系中需要换用另一个特殊称谓,才能将两种关系区分开来。 类似的,当我们使用比较客气的称谓时(客气的意思是刻意强调与对方的社会距离),就会选择一些标签式称谓(相对于个体式称谓),这些标签用于标识对方的社会身份,比如职业、职务、爵位、军衔等等。(这里存在一些微妙情形,当既要表示客气或尊敬,又要表示亲密时,会组合使用标签和个体名字,比如杰克叔叔,小波老师,泰迪上校,等等。) 进而,(特别是在第三人称场合)当我们想要表达对他人的轻蔑,或强调自己和他的差异,并以此强调自己和他根本不是同类人,也不屑于将他当作特定个体对待时,便会倾向于选择类别称谓,常见的类别涉及种族、民族、地域、阶层、宗教、政治派别和亚文化群体,还有身体残疾特征。 当然,对交往模式的这种二分法可能过于简化了,一个多层次渐变模型或许更接近现实,单独建模和刻板化处理这两种评估和判断方法,会以不同比例混合使用,因而对个人而言,其关系网将按交往密切程度而构成一组由亲及疏的同心圆结构,其中最内圈大概只有小几十人。 邓巴数理论对我们理解人类社会很有帮助,人类学家早已注意到,传统乡村社会大多是小型熟人社会,游动性的狩猎采集群体更是无一例外,定居文明出现之前,不存在比熟人社会更大的社会结构,而邓巴告诉我们,这不是偶然现象,而是人类认知局限所造成的结果。 邓巴对社会化灵长类的群体规模和脑容量的统计研究,支持了基于认知能力的解释,他发现,这些群体的规模和它们的大脑新皮层容量之间,存在着显著的相关性,从新皮层的尺寸可以粗略推测群体规模,而脑科学告诉我们,新皮层确实和社会化行为、表情处理和语言能力等社会性动物特有的认知能力有密切关系。 熟人社会的特点是,其内部秩序主要靠熟人之间的合作与信任来维持,这是一种在人际交往中自发建立并自我维持的秩序,不依赖于中心执行机构(比如司法系统);这些人之所以相互熟识并生活在一起,通常是因为血缘和姻亲关系为合作互惠创造了前提;而记忆交往历史和两两关系之所以重要,是因为这些记忆在上述合作互惠关系的建立和维持中扮演了关键角色。 政治学家罗伯特·阿克塞尔罗德([[Robert Axelrod]])的理论研究发现,在重复性合作博弈中,达成互惠合作从而避免囚徒困境的可能性,与此类社会关系记忆有着密切关系,这些记忆能够帮助个体区别对待不同交往对象,如此才可能发展出各种复杂的合作策略,让自己既乐于合作(从而最大可能的获取合作收益),又尽可能的避免受骗吃亏。 所以,当一个熟人社会人口接近或超出邓巴数限制,因而社会关系记忆的负担超出个体认知能力局限时,确保社会和谐的合作互惠规范便难以为继,于是该社会就会发生分裂;这一理论预测,得到了人类学调查的印证,一个特别完美的当代案例,是北美的胡特尔人([[Hutterites]])社区。 胡特尔人是新教再洗礼派的一支,他们离群索居,拒斥现代生活,并在最大程度上实现了自我治理;每个社区由若干扩展家庭组成,人数在60-140人之间,过着部落公社式的生活;由于生育率非常高,每过十几二十年,当人口接近上限时,就会安排一次分家,拆成两个社区。类似的情况,在再洗礼派的另一个分支阿米绪人([[Amish]])中也可观察到。 狩猎采集社会的典型组织单位——游团——的规模一般不足百人,比如非洲西南部卡拉哈里沙漠的桑人([[San people|San]]),每个游团大约20-60人,邻近农耕区的游团则较大,100-150人;从事游耕农业的半定居社会,规模也只是略大,比如缅甸克钦邦山区的一个500人游耕群落,共有9个村寨,其中最大的也只有31个家户100多人。 即便是完全定居且人口密集的农耕社会,若缺乏较发达的政治结构,其规模也接近或略高于邓巴数,这种情况在交通不便的山区尤为普遍,比如菲律宾吕宋山区从事灌溉农业并建造了辉煌梯田的伊戈罗特人([[Igorots]]),其村寨规模常有一两千人,粗看是个大社会,但其实里面分成了十几个相互独立、互不统辖、自行其是的单元(叫ato),其规模恰好接近邓巴数。 游牧社会的情况则比较多样和多变,因为游牧者的社会结构高度依赖于他们和邻近农耕定居者的关系,以及这些农耕社会本身的结构特征;通常,当远离农耕区,或者邻近的农耕者也缺乏大型社会时,游牧者的社会结构便与狩猎采集者相似,随人口增长而不断分支裂变,从而将规模限制在邓巴数之下。 比如地处草原腹地的哈萨克和北部蒙古,一个典型的牧团规模大约五六帐,最多十几帐(一帐相当于一个家户),由于过冬草场相对稀缺,冬季会有几十帐聚在一起;在资源贫瘠、人口稀疏的牧区,比如阿拉伯和北非的沙漠贝都因人,牧团规模更可小至两三帐。 只有当他们频繁接触较大规模的农耕定居社会,与之发展出勒索、贡奉、庇护、军事雇佣等关系,并因大额贡奉的分配和劫掠行动的协调等问题而引发内部冲突时,才会发展出更大更复杂的社会结构。 而在某些特殊地理条件下,游牧者即便与农耕社会长期频密接触,也难以发展出大型社会,比如青海河湟地区的羌人,其牧区被崇山峻岭分割成一条条难以相互通行的山谷,因而其社会结构也和在类似皱褶地带从事农业的族群一样,长期处于碎片化状态。 如此看来,我们不无理由将小型熟人社会视为人类社会结构的“自然状态”,在人类漫长历史的绝大部分时期,它都是唯一可能的形态,更大更复杂的社会是十分晚近的发展;然而,人类毕竟还是建立起了大型复杂社会,现代都市社会的规模,已超出邓巴数五个数量级,像大公司这样的机构,常拥有数十万成员,却仍可协调一致的行动,持续追求特定目标。 既然人类能够做到这一点,必定是找到了某些特别的办法,创造出了与之相应的文化和制度元素,从而帮助他们克服了邓巴数所揭示的认知局限,那么,他们是怎么做到的?在此过程中他们创造了什么?还有更基本的问题:社会最初为何会向大型化方向发展?是何种力量在推动着社会变得越来越大?在后续文章里,我将顺着这些疑问,继续追寻人类社会的发展历史。 (本系列文章首发于“大象公会”,纸媒转载请先征得公会同意。)
[译文]人类与其他猎食者有何不同?

‘Superpredator’ humans are hunting other animals out of existence
“超级猎手”–人类正将其他动物赶尽杀绝

作者:Elizabeth Pennisi @ 2015-08-20
译者:易海(@胡海栋2221)
校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:Science,http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-animals/2015/08/superpredator-humans-are-hunting-other-animals-out-existence

【尽管大型肉食动物对于生态系统健康至关重要,但人类出于运动消遣目的而对它们的猎杀,其速度是其他物种的九倍。】

A new study drives home the destructive power of our species. Not only do we kill other animals at muc(more...)

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‘Superpredator’ humans are hunting other animals out of existence “超级猎手”--人类正将其他动物赶尽杀绝 作者:Elizabeth Pennisi @ 2015-08-20 译者:易海(@胡海栋2221) 校对:沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 来源:Science,http://news.sciencemag.org/plants-animals/2015/08/superpredator-humans-are-hunting-other-animals-out-existence 【尽管大型肉食动物对于生态系统健康至关重要,但人类出于运动消遣目的而对它们的猎杀,其速度是其他物种的九倍。】 A new study drives home the destructive power of our species. Not only do we kill other animals at much higher rates than other predators, but our ability to bring down larger adults can make it very difficult for some prey populations to recover. This superpredator status may fill our bellies, but it has darker implications. "Any predator capable of exerting such impact will eventually drive its prey to extinction," warns Gerardo Ceballos, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. 一项新研究清楚揭示了我们人类的破坏力。不仅是因为我们猎杀动物的速度比其他种类的捕食者更快,还在于我们能够捕杀成年个体,这使得猎物的种群更加难以恢复。这种超级猎手的身份可以满足我们的口腹之欲,但它有很消极的影响。Gerardo Ceballos是位于墨西哥城的墨西哥国立自治大学的一位生态学家,他警告说:“任何有能力施加这种影响的捕食者,最终都将导致它的猎物走向灭绝。” It’s happened before. About 14,000 years ago, humans entering North America caused many large species, such as the mammoth, to disappear. And our hunting technologies have only improved since then, particularly when it comes to catching fish. Overfishing is a severe problem in some parts of the world, and a recent report concludes that because of human activity, more than 90 fish species are at risk of extinction. 这种灭绝事件曾经发生过。大约在1.4万年前,人类进入北美,导致许多大型动物灭绝,例如猛犸象。我们的捕猎技术,特别捕鱼技术,是从那时候才开始提高的。过度捕捞在世界上的某些地方是非常严重的问题,最近的一项报告指出,有超过九十种鱼类由于人类活动而面临灭绝的危险。 The new study originated in a casual observation. Thomas Reimchen, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Victoria in Canada, has spent years studying how predators impact the stickleback fish on an island 130 kilometers off the Canadian Pacific coast. Over the decades he determined that each species never kills more than 2% of the sticklebacks per year and usually attacks juveniles. 这项新研究源于一个偶然的观察。加拿大维多利亚大学的进化生态学家Thomas Reimchen常年在距加拿大太平洋海岸130千米的一个海岛上研究捕食者如何影响棘鱼。数十年的研究之后,他发现每个捕食物种每年捕食的棘鱼不会超过2% ,并且捕杀的通常是幼体。 Yet off that same island, fishermen seemed to be taking a far higher percentage of salmon, mostly adults. The contrast bothered him, so Reimchen and a few former students searched the scientific literature for data on the rate at which humans and other animals were killing other species. 然而,在同一海岛附近,渔民捕捞的三文鱼远远超过这个比例,而且捕捞的都是成年个体。这种对比让他很困扰,所以Reimchen 和他之前的几个学生查阅了很多科学文献,来查找人类和其它动物捕杀其他生物的速度。 After a decade compiling and analyzing about 300 studies, the team came to some grim conclusions, says Chris Darimont, a conservation scientist also at the University of Victoria who helped lead the study. Humans and other predators—like lions, wolves, and grizzly bears—kill wild herbivores at about the same rate, but humans kill large carnivores at nine times the rate of other predators, Darimont, Reimchen, and their colleagues report today in Science. 同样来自维多利亚大学的环境保护科学家Chris Darimont说,在经过了十年时间对大约三百项研究的汇编和分析之后,他领导的团队得到了一些残酷的结论。人类和其他捕食者如狮子、狼和灰熊捕杀野生食草动物的速度差不多,但人类捕杀大型食肉动物的速度是其他捕食者的九倍。Darimont与 Reimchen以及他们的同事现已将这一结果发表在《科学》杂志上(8月21日号)。 We kill those carnivores not for food, but for trophies and—sometimes—to eliminate them as competitors, Darimont says. Because they naturally don’t face much predation, they have not evolved ways to successfully avoid humans or reproduce fast enough to make up for human-induced losses. Darimont说,我们杀死这些食肉动物不是为了食用,而是当做战利品,或者,有时把他们当做竞争对手而淘汰掉。由于这些食肉动物很少遭遇自然捕食,它们还没能进化出能成功躲避人类捕杀的方式,也没能进化出足够快的繁殖能力来弥补人类引起的种群数量的减少。 But the toll on fish is even greater. The researchers report that people catch adult fish at a rate up to 14 times other predators. Thanks to mechanized fishing, the annual human toll on marine fish may exceed 100 million tons. What's worse, by focusing on catching large adults, fishing removes individuals in their reproductive prime that are needed to replenish diminishing populations. Already,?this fishing pressure has caused species to evolve new growth patterns and behaviors. 鱼群被捕杀的程度更为严重。研究者说,人类捕杀成年鱼类的速度是其他捕食者的14倍。由于机械化捕捞,每年人类捕杀的海洋鱼类可能超过一亿吨。更糟糕的是,由于捕捞的都是大型成年个体,捕鱼业捞走了那些繁殖能力最强的青壮年个体,而它们对于补充种群数量很重要。人类捕捞所带来的压力已经使物种进化出新的生长模式和行为。 Marine ecologist Nicholas Dulvy from Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada, is pleased with the work. Hunting and fishing have "not captured the public attention necessary to change the status quo," says Dulvy, who was not involved with the study. "The disparity between human and animal predation rates is a useful way of illustrating how ecologically out-of-whack many exploitation rates and management policies are." Darimont thinks people need to take a lesson from other predators, switching the focus to catching juveniles and lowering catch rates. 加拿大本那比市西蒙·弗雷泽大学的海洋生态学家Nicholas Dulvy对这项工作很满意。他并没有参与这项研究,但他说,“猎杀和捕捞并没能在公众眼中引起足以改变现状的关注度。人类和动物捕杀速度的不同,是说明开采速度和管理政策如何造成生态紊乱的一个有效途径。”Darimont 认为人类应该向其他捕食者学习,转而捕杀幼体并降低捕杀速度。 But others take issue with the study's approach and conclusions. "I think it’s total rubbish," says Ray Hilborn, an ecologist at the University of Washington, Seattle. An expert on sustainable exploitation, he says that even though humans may take more fish than any one predator, their haul makes up only 40% of total natural predation on fish. 但有人对该项研究的方法以及结论持有异议。华盛顿大学西雅图分校的生态学家Ray Hilborn说:“我认为那项研究完全就是垃圾”。Ray Hilborn是可持续发展方面的专家,他说尽管人类捕捞的鱼远超过其他捕食者,但他们的捕捞量也只及被自然捕食的鱼类数量的40%。 Hilborn says this is a reasonable amount given the need to provide food for the human population, and the new work is “fuzzing up what we mean by sustainability.” He says he doesn't think that people can fish less and still provide enough food for the world. 他认为,相对于人类的食物需求,这是一个合理的数量,最新的这一研究工作“错误理解了我们所说的可持续发展”。他说,他不认为人类能在减少捕鱼量的同时依然能为这个世界提供足够的食物。 Even so, people should take a really hard look at management practices that go after the largest individuals, says Blaire Van Valkenburgh, a paleoecologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved with the work. "Getting that attitude to change is going to be very difficult, but at least [with this paper] we will be able to get some people to talk about it." 加利福尼亚大学洛杉矶分校的古生态学家Blaire Van Valkenburgh(他并没有参与这项研究工作)认为,即便如此,人类也应该仔细审视自己专门捕捞大型个体的做法。“让人们改变目前的态度是非常困难的,但至少(这篇论文)会让一些人来讨论这个问题。” (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——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——

[译文]旧石器食谱与火

Paleo Diet and Fire
旧石器食谱与火

作者:Peter Turchin @ 2014-08-07
译者:Dr啊(@Dr啊)
校对:Drunkplane(@Drunkplane-zny)
来源:evolution-institute.org,https://evolution-institute.org/blog/paleo-diet-and-fire/

It’s been a while since my last update on the Paleo diet (perhaps a better name for it is ‘Post-Neolithic diet’). Here are the links to previous blogs on this theme:

自我上次更新关于旧石器食谱(也许更好的名字是‘后新石器食谱’)的情况到现在已经有一段时间了。这是我之前有关这一话题的几篇博文的链接:

http://socialevolutionforum.com/2012/08/23/an-update-on-my-so-called-paleo-diet/
http://socialevolutionforum.com/2013/07/20/adventures-in-paleo-eating-bone-marrow/
http://socialevolutionforum.com/2013/05/04/breadfruit/

As long-time readers of my blog remember, I switched to Paleo diet in May of 2012. Within two months I noticed an improvement in my health. After half a year I lost 20 pounds and my health improved dramatically. A number of chronic health problems cleared up. At t(more...)

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Paleo Diet and Fire 旧石器食谱与火 作者:Peter Turchin @ 2014-08-07 译者:Dr啊(@Dr啊) 校对:Drunkplane(@Drunkplane-zny) 来源:evolution-institute.org,https://evolution-institute.org/blog/paleo-diet-and-fire/ It’s been a while since my last update on the Paleo diet (perhaps a better name for it is ‘Post-Neolithic diet’). Here are the links to previous blogs on this theme: 自我上次更新关于旧石器食谱(也许更好的名字是‘后新石器食谱’)的情况到现在已经有一段时间了。这是我之前有关这一话题的几篇博文的链接: http://socialevolutionforum.com/2012/08/23/an-update-on-my-so-called-paleo-diet/ http://socialevolutionforum.com/2013/07/20/adventures-in-paleo-eating-bone-marrow/ http://socialevolutionforum.com/2013/05/04/breadfruit/ As long-time readers of my blog remember, I switched to Paleo diet in May of 2012. Within two months I noticed an improvement in my health. After half a year I lost 20 pounds and my health improved dramatically. A number of chronic health problems cleared up. At that point, I made the decision to permanently switch to this diet, and I never looked back. 我博客的长期读者还记得,我在2012年五月转向旧石器食谱。两个月之内我就发现我的健康状况有所改善。半年之后,我减掉了20磅体重,同时健康状况大幅提高。很多长期的健康问题都不见了。在那时,我决定永远的遵循这一食谱,而且再也不会回头了。 Over the last year I noticed another incremental and slow, but real, improvement. I feel better than when I was 10 years ago. I became noticeably stronger – I can now easily lift and carry things that used to give me trouble before. More embarrassingly, people comment on how well I look. I am getting a bit tired of explaining the Paleo diet, over and over again. 在过去的一整年,我发现我的健康状况有了另一种持续增长的,缓慢的,但却很真实的改善。我比十年感觉更好。很明显,我变得更强壮了——我现在可以轻易地举起并搬运之前很难搬动的物体。更让人不好意思的是,人们总是夸我气色看起来有多么好。我都有点疲于一遍遍的解释旧石器食谱这件事了。 The gospel of Paleo diet is spreading. My wife has converted to it, then my mother. My secretary.Several friends and colleagues. I am not urging anybody to switch, but the results speak for themselves. On the other hand, none of the people whom I infected with Paleo had experienced as great improvement as me. 旧石器食谱的福音一直在传播。我妻子已经皈依了,继而是我的母亲,我的秘书,还有几个朋友和同事。我并不是在劝任何人转向这一食谱,但是结果说明了一切。而另一方面,在所有被我带动并遵循该食谱的人当中,没人经历了像我这样巨大的改善。 This can be due to my genetics (I have very few generations of Neolithic ancestors). It could also be due to the fact that I am simply not tempted to stray. When I am home, I stay strictly within the guidelines (no grains, no legumes, no dairy). When I travel I periodically get poisoned because I have no control over the ingredients. 这有可能因为我的基因(大概我的新石器祖先总共才没几代吧,呵呵)。这也可能只是因为我从不试图背离该食谱。当我在家的时候,我严格遵循食谱指示(不吃谷物,不吃豆类,不吃奶制品)。当我偶尔离家在外就难免被那些食物‘毒’到,毕竟我无法控制外面食物的配料。 Anyway, the real purpose of this blog is to discuss the book I just finished reading, which is very relevant to the Paleo diet (but I thought that an update on my own experience was due). The book is by a colleague of mine, Richard Wrangham: Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human. It’s a great book, and I recommend that everybody interested in human evolution read it. 总之,这篇博文其实是要讨论一本我刚刚读过的书,此书跟旧石器食谱非常相关(但我觉得是时候要更新一下我自己的亲身经历了)。这本书是我的一位叫理查德·兰厄姆的同事所作,书名叫《燃起火堆:烹饪如何铸就了人类》。这是本了不起的书,我推荐所有对人类进化感兴趣的人都读一下。 What I found most interesting in Richard’s book is his reconstruction of the dietary shifts that enabled the evolution of large human brains (which then made possible culture, living in large groups, language, art, science, and civilization – and who knows what else). 我认为理查德书中最有趣的一点是他对饮食变化的重构。正是饮食的变化让人类进化出了巨大的大脑(该变化同时也让文化,大型群居,语言,艺术,科学和文明以及其他数不清的事情成为可能)。 The first step, which took place 5-7 million years ago, was the transition from our chimpanzee-like ancestors, forest apes, to australopithecines that inhabited drier savanna-woodlands. Australopithecine brain size (in anthropologese, “cranial capacity”) was 450 cubic cm, compared to 350-400 cm3 in forest apes. 第一阶段发生在500-700万年前,这期间我们黑猩猩般的祖先——森林猿——开始转变成南方古猿,并开始在更加干燥的稀树草原上生活。南方古猿的大脑尺寸(用人类学术语叫‘颅容量’)是450立方厘米,相比之下森林猿的大脑尺寸是350-400立方厘米。 Incidentally, and as an aside, I find slightly amusing, but mostly exasperating, Richard’s dutiful translation of cubic centimeters into cubic inches. Americans, isn’t it time to grow up? Get used to metric units! Does it really help you to know that the cranial capacity of Australopithecus was 27.5 cubic inches? If I show you an object, will you be able to estimate its volume in cubic inches? End of diatribe. 顺带说句题外话,我觉得有一件略微有些喜感但又实在让人恼火的事情,那就是理查德坚定不移的将立方厘米转换成立方英寸。美国同胞们,是时候长大了吧?赶快习惯使用公制单位吧!你真的觉得将南方古猿的大脑说成27.5立方英寸更能帮助你理解?假如我随便拿个物体,你能用立方英寸估算其容量吗?好了,牢骚到此结束。 The food resource that enabled this transition was the underground storage parts of plants, highly concentrated sources of energy-rich starch. Parenthetically, that’s why potatoes, yams, carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, and taro are such great foods for humans – we have been eating them, or equivalents, for millions of years. Australopithecines dug these tubers, rhizomes, and corms (we are now speaking ‘botanese’) with sharpened sticks. 让这一步转变得以发生的食物来源是植物埋在地下的“储能”部分——那富含高能量淀粉的根茎。顺便说一句,这也是为什么土豆,山药,胡萝卜,甜菜根,红薯和芋头是对人类非常好的食物——我们已经食用这些或类似食物几百万年了。南方古猿用削尖了的棍棒将地下的块茎,根状茎,以及球茎(我们好像在说‘不丹语’)挖出来。 The next step was the transition to ‘habilines’ (such as Homo habilis) more than 2 million years ago: from 450 to 612 cm3. The big dietary change that fueled this increase in brain size was probably meat eating. Or marrow eating – see my blog on this issue. 接下来的阶段发生在200多万年前,南方古猿转变成‘人属猿人’(比如‘能人’),其大脑尺寸也从450立方厘米增加到了612立方厘米。造成大脑尺寸增加的饮食变化可能是肉类的摄取或是骨髓的摄取——请参见我的这篇博文(https://evolution-institute.org/blog/adventures-in-paleo-eating-bone-marrow/?source=sef)。 After that, brain size in early human started growing in a really explosive manner. Early Homo erectus (1.8 million years ago) had brains of 870 cm3. 800 thousand years ago Homo heidelbergensis (which could be simply a subspecies of erectus) had brains of 1200 cm3. That’s awfully close to the modern Homo sapiens, whose cranial capacity is 1400 cm3. 在这之后,早期人类的大脑尺寸开始爆炸式的增长。早期的直立猿人(180万年前)拥有870立方厘米的大脑。80万年前的海德堡人(可能只是直立人的一个亚种)拥有1200立方厘米的大脑。这个尺寸已经非常接近现代智人1400立方厘米的大脑尺寸了。 Where did the energy that fueled these oversize brains come from? Wrangham argues that it came from cooking. I find his argument quite convincing. Thermal processing of tubers and meats doubles the ability of our guts to extract calories and nutrients from these food sources. 支撑这种大尺寸大脑的能量来自什么地方?兰厄姆认为来自烹饪。我亦觉得他的论点很有说服力。对块茎和肉类的热加工让我们的消化系统从这些食材中攫取热量和营养的能力翻了倍。 The use of fire is securely attested at the Gesher Benot Ya’akov site near Jordan River, which is dated to 790,000 years ago. But here we have archaeological evidence of hearths, permanent fires around which human nuclear families would gather around every evening for the most important meal of the day. It is quite likely that hearths were a product of long evolution, with humans using fire for cooking well before the evolution of human family (which as Wrangham argues, was itself a result of cooking food – but you will have to read his book to find out the details of the argument). 现在已经确切证明了,早在79万年前,约旦河附近的Gesher Benot Ya’akov遗址中,火就已经被使用了。现在我们又有了关于灶台的考古学证据,核心家庭成员每天晚上会为了一天当中最重要的一餐而聚集在一堆持续燃烧的火堆周围。灶台很可能是一个长期进化的产物,毕竟人类使用火进行烹饪要远远早于家庭的进化(亦如兰厄姆所提出,家庭这一概念本身也是烹饪食物所带来的结果——但是你得去读他的书来了解这个论点的更多细节)。 Even if you buy Wrangham’s theory (which I do), it raises some questions. When did humans learn how to start fires? Remember The Quest for Fire, where the plot centers on this issue? 就算你同意兰厄姆的理论(我就同意),这其中仍然有些疑问。人类什么时候开始学会生火的?还记得电影《火之战》吗,整部电影的情节都是围绕这个问题展开的。 OK, it’s getting late, so I’d better end this post. But I can’t resist adding one thing. What makes Richard’s arguments particularly compelling is his ‘experimental’ approach to the questions he discusses. He has tried eating like a gorilla (he failed, we simply don’t have the guts for the gorilla diet). Another experiment he tried with his friends was chewing raw goat meat – with or without adding tough leaves. Sure, adding leaves produced better traction to reduce goat’s thigh muscle. But cooking it worked even better. 好啦,时候不早了,我最好给文章结个尾。但是我必须再说一点。让理查德的论证异常有说服力的是,他对所讨论的问题使用了‘实验性’的方法。他曾经尝试像只大猩猩那么吃(他最终失败了,我们就是没有勇气像大猩猩那么吃【译注:原文“gut”为“肠胃”与“勇气”之双关,按兰厄姆的观点,人类无法像大猩猩那么吃,是因为我们的肠胃已经适应了熟食】)。他和他的朋友所尝试的另一个实验是直接进食生的山羊肉——不确定是否同时吃一些硬的植物叶子。诚然,吃生山羊肉的时候加点硬叶子可以增加附着力从而分解山羊紧致的肌肉。但是把羊肉烹饪一下肯定更好。【译注:黑猩猩吃肉时会掺一些叶子一起嚼。】 So what’s the take-home lesson? Fire up that barbecue grill – we evolved to eat meat cooked over the open fire! 所以今天我们学到了什么呢?点燃烧烤炉吧,我们进化到要吃用明火烹饪过的食物了! (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——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——

[译文]神奇的肯尼亚长跑部落

KENYA’S RUNNING TRIBE
肯尼亚长跑部落

作者:John Manners @ 1997-11
译者:黑色枪骑兵
校对:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy) ,沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:The Sports Historian No. 17 (2),  http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/SportsHistorian/1997/sh172d.pdf

This article is about a tribe in Kenya that has a remarkable faculty for turning out world class distance runners. The people are called the Kalenjin. They occupy an area about the size of Wales and they number something under 3 million, or about 10 % of Kenya’s population. But this group has earned about 75% of Kenya’s distance running honors.

本文讲述的是一个位于肯尼亚的部落,那儿产出了数量惊人的世界级长跑运动员。这个民族被称作卡伦津人,他们占据着一个和威尔士差不多大小的区域,人口不到300万,约占肯尼亚人口的10%。但是,在肯尼亚赢得的长跑荣誉中,这个群体占了75%。

That number is impressive enough, in view of the degree to which Kenya now dominates the sport, but looked at another way, the figures are even more remarkable: over the past 10 years, athletes from this small tribe have won close to 40% of all the biggest international honors available in men’s distance running.

考虑到目前肯尼亚在这项运动中的统治地位,这个数字已足够引人注目,但是从另一个角度看的话,这个数字显得更加出类拔萃:在过去的十年里,从这个小部落里走出来的运动员赢得了男子长跑界所有大型国际性荣誉的40%。

Most of this article will be a discussion of various notions that have been advanced to account for this phenomenon, but before going into that I want to throw out a few more numbers to show what I mean by that 40% figure. First, I want to make it clear that I am talking about men’s distance running. Kalenjin women – African women in general – have lagged behind their male counterparts for reasons I am afraid I will not have time to get into.

本文大部分篇幅都会用来讨论那些为解释这一现象而提出的各种观点,但是在此之前,我想要列出更多数字,以表明我想通过40%这个数据表达的意思。首先需要明确的是,我讨论的只是男子长跑。卡伦津女性——以及总体而言的非洲女性——在这方面落后于她们的男性同胞。至于其原因,恐怕我没有时间去一探究竟。

Now, the Kalenjin excel in varying degrees in all three of distance running’s disciplines: cross country, road racing and track. I will take them one at a time, starting with cross country.

现在,卡伦津人在三种长跑项目中都不同程度地处于领先地位,他们分别是越野跑、公路跑和径赛。我会逐一对他们进行分析,首先说越野跑。

Three weeks ago, the annual World Cross Country Championships were held in Turin. I do not know how much coverage the press here gave the event, but from an international perspective, the World Cross Country Championships are a big deal.

三周以前,国际田联年度世界越野锦标赛在意大利都灵举行。我不知道当地新闻界给了这个活动多少报道,但是从国际视角来看,这是一次大事件。

In fact, it is often said that the men’s championship is the toughest of all foot races to win because it attracts the world’s best at distances from the mile to the marathon, and each country can enter not just three runners, but nine.

事实上,这项赛事的男子冠军通常被认为是所有跑步比赛中最难赢得的。因为它吸引了全世界最好的中长跑运动员,从英里跑到马拉松。并且,每个国家能入选的选手不是三名,而是九名。

In this year’s men’s race there were 280 competitors from 60 different countries, most of them hoping somehow to upset the Kenyan juggernaut, but in the end, out of those 280 runners, five of the first seven to finish were Kenyans – and four of those five were Kalenjin.

今年的男子比赛共有来自60个不同国家的280名选手,他们当中的绝大多数都希望能多多少少打破一点肯尼亚人的主宰格局,但是最终,前七名中五人是肯尼亚人,而这五人中有四人是卡伦津人。

Remarkable as it may seem, this result is fairly typical. Since 1986, when Kenya began taking these championships seriously, the country has yet to lose the men’s team race. And Kalenjin athletes have made up fully three quarters of the scoring runners on those 12 winning Kenyan teams.

这看起来可能挺惹人注目,但是这个结果其实很典型。自从1986年肯尼亚真正参与这些锦标赛开始,该国在男子组团体赛中战无不胜。12支获胜的肯尼亚队伍中,取得名次的运动员里,卡伦津运动员足足占了四分之三。

In fact, in eight of the 12 winning years, if only the Kalenjin runners had competed, they would still have taken the team title. What is more, of the 36 individual medals awarded in the men’s competition in those 12 years, Kalenjin runners have won 18, precisely half the total.

事实上,在12个取胜年头中的8个,即使只有卡伦津运动员参加了比赛,他们仍会把团体冠军拿下。此外,在这12年中,男子比赛的36块个人奖牌,卡伦津人拿走了18块,刚好占了一半。

In road racing, Kalenjin participation has been comparatively limited until recent years, but they have had a perceptible impact at the top – the unofficial “world best” times for the standard road race distances.

直到近几年之前,卡伦津选手在公路赛上的参与度相对有限,但是他们对比赛顶端的影响是显而易见的——即对标准公路赛的非官方“世界最佳”成绩的影响。

Kalenjin men own the world bests at five of the eight commonly run distances shorter than the marathon, and in two of the remaining three, Kalenjin runners have bettered the listed world best while running in longer races. As for the marathon itself, a Kalenjin claims history’s second fastest time – 2 hours, 7 minutes, 2 seconds – and Kalenjin runners have won the Boston Marathon, the world’s oldest and most remunerative road race, four times since 1988.

在八项距离小于马拉松的常规项目中,卡伦津人拥有其中五项的世界最好成绩,另外三项中的两项,卡伦津人在进行更长距离的比赛时刷新了其既有世界纪录。至于马拉松,一个卡伦津人跑出了世界第二好成绩——两小时七分两秒,而且,自1988年以来,卡伦津人赢得了四次波士顿马拉松赛,它是世界上历史最悠久、奖金最丰厚的公路赛。

In fact, at last year’s Centennial Boston Marathon, the richest road race in history, Kalenjin runners took the first two places, three of the top five, five of the top eight and 12 of the top 18.

事实上,去年,在有史以来奖金最高的公路赛——百年波士顿马拉松赛上,卡伦津运动员取得了冠亚军,而且在前五名里占据了三席,在前八名里占据了五席,在前十八名里占据了十二席。

But nowhere in road racing do Kalenjin achievements compare with the record they have built up in the more exacting discipline of track. Here we are talking about distances from 800 meters to 1(more...)

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5999
KENYA’S RUNNING TRIBE 肯尼亚长跑部落 作者:John Manners @ 1997-11 译者:黑色枪骑兵 校对:陈小乖(@lion_kittyyyyy) ,沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 来源:The Sports Historian No. 17 (2),  http://library.la84.org/SportsLibrary/SportsHistorian/1997/sh172d.pdf This article is about a tribe in Kenya that has a remarkable faculty for turning out world class distance runners. The people are called the Kalenjin. They occupy an area about the size of Wales and they number something under 3 million, or about 10 % of Kenya’s population. But this group has earned about 75% of Kenya’s distance running honors. 本文讲述的是一个位于肯尼亚的部落,那儿产出了数量惊人的世界级长跑运动员。这个民族被称作卡伦津人,他们占据着一个和威尔士差不多大小的区域,人口不到300万,约占肯尼亚人口的10%。但是,在肯尼亚赢得的长跑荣誉中,这个群体占了75%。 That number is impressive enough, in view of the degree to which Kenya now dominates the sport, but looked at another way, the figures are even more remarkable: over the past 10 years, athletes from this small tribe have won close to 40% of all the biggest international honors available in men’s distance running. 考虑到目前肯尼亚在这项运动中的统治地位,这个数字已足够引人注目,但是从另一个角度看的话,这个数字显得更加出类拔萃:在过去的十年里,从这个小部落里走出来的运动员赢得了男子长跑界所有大型国际性荣誉的40%。 Most of this article will be a discussion of various notions that have been advanced to account for this phenomenon, but before going into that I want to throw out a few more numbers to show what I mean by that 40% figure. First, I want to make it clear that I am talking about men’s distance running. Kalenjin women - African women in general - have lagged behind their male counterparts for reasons I am afraid I will not have time to get into. 本文大部分篇幅都会用来讨论那些为解释这一现象而提出的各种观点,但是在此之前,我想要列出更多数字,以表明我想通过40%这个数据表达的意思。首先需要明确的是,我讨论的只是男子长跑。卡伦津女性——以及总体而言的非洲女性——在这方面落后于她们的男性同胞。至于其原因,恐怕我没有时间去一探究竟。 Now, the Kalenjin excel in varying degrees in all three of distance running’s disciplines: cross country, road racing and track. I will take them one at a time, starting with cross country. 现在,卡伦津人在三种长跑项目中都不同程度地处于领先地位,他们分别是越野跑、公路跑和径赛。我会逐一对他们进行分析,首先说越野跑。 Three weeks ago, the annual World Cross Country Championships were held in Turin. I do not know how much coverage the press here gave the event, but from an international perspective, the World Cross Country Championships are a big deal. 三周以前,国际田联年度世界越野锦标赛在意大利都灵举行。我不知道当地新闻界给了这个活动多少报道,但是从国际视角来看,这是一次大事件。 In fact, it is often said that the men’s championship is the toughest of all foot races to win because it attracts the world’s best at distances from the mile to the marathon, and each country can enter not just three runners, but nine. 事实上,这项赛事的男子冠军通常被认为是所有跑步比赛中最难赢得的。因为它吸引了全世界最好的中长跑运动员,从英里跑到马拉松。并且,每个国家能入选的选手不是三名,而是九名。 In this year’s men’s race there were 280 competitors from 60 different countries, most of them hoping somehow to upset the Kenyan juggernaut, but in the end, out of those 280 runners, five of the first seven to finish were Kenyans - and four of those five were Kalenjin. 今年的男子比赛共有来自60个不同国家的280名选手,他们当中的绝大多数都希望能多多少少打破一点肯尼亚人的主宰格局,但是最终,前七名中五人是肯尼亚人,而这五人中有四人是卡伦津人。 Remarkable as it may seem, this result is fairly typical. Since 1986, when Kenya began taking these championships seriously, the country has yet to lose the men’s team race. And Kalenjin athletes have made up fully three quarters of the scoring runners on those 12 winning Kenyan teams. 这看起来可能挺惹人注目,但是这个结果其实很典型。自从1986年肯尼亚真正参与这些锦标赛开始,该国在男子组团体赛中战无不胜。12支获胜的肯尼亚队伍中,取得名次的运动员里,卡伦津运动员足足占了四分之三。 In fact, in eight of the 12 winning years, if only the Kalenjin runners had competed, they would still have taken the team title. What is more, of the 36 individual medals awarded in the men’s competition in those 12 years, Kalenjin runners have won 18, precisely half the total. 事实上,在12个取胜年头中的8个,即使只有卡伦津运动员参加了比赛,他们仍会把团体冠军拿下。此外,在这12年中,男子比赛的36块个人奖牌,卡伦津人拿走了18块,刚好占了一半。 In road racing, Kalenjin participation has been comparatively limited until recent years, but they have had a perceptible impact at the top - the unofficial “world best” times for the standard road race distances. 直到近几年之前,卡伦津选手在公路赛上的参与度相对有限,但是他们对比赛顶端的影响是显而易见的——即对标准公路赛的非官方“世界最佳”成绩的影响。 Kalenjin men own the world bests at five of the eight commonly run distances shorter than the marathon, and in two of the remaining three, Kalenjin runners have bettered the listed world best while running in longer races. As for the marathon itself, a Kalenjin claims history’s second fastest time - 2 hours, 7 minutes, 2 seconds - and Kalenjin runners have won the Boston Marathon, the world’s oldest and most remunerative road race, four times since 1988. 在八项距离小于马拉松的常规项目中,卡伦津人拥有其中五项的世界最好成绩,另外三项中的两项,卡伦津人在进行更长距离的比赛时刷新了其既有世界纪录。至于马拉松,一个卡伦津人跑出了世界第二好成绩——两小时七分两秒,而且,自1988年以来,卡伦津人赢得了四次波士顿马拉松赛,它是世界上历史最悠久、奖金最丰厚的公路赛。 In fact, at last year’s Centennial Boston Marathon, the richest road race in history, Kalenjin runners took the first two places, three of the top five, five of the top eight and 12 of the top 18. 事实上,去年,在有史以来奖金最高的公路赛——百年波士顿马拉松赛上,卡伦津运动员取得了冠亚军,而且在前五名里占据了三席,在前八名里占据了五席,在前十八名里占据了十二席。 But nowhere in road racing do Kalenjin achievements compare with the record they have built up in the more exacting discipline of track. Here we are talking about distances from 800 meters to 10,000 meters, and success in these events is measured mainly in two ways: medals and times. 但是,与卡伦津人在要求更严格的径赛中取得的成就相比,他们的公路赛成绩不值一提。这里我们说的是从800米到10000米的比赛,在这些赛事中,成就主要是从两方面来衡量:奖牌数和用时。 I will start with medals. First, Olympic medals.Kalenjin distance runners have won 26, eight of them gold. The only meaningful numbers to compare this to are medals won in men’s distance events by whole countries during approximately the same period. 我先说奖牌数。首先是奥运奖牌,卡伦津人一共获得了26块,其中8块是金牌。唯一能和这个数据进行有意义比较的,是同期其他国家在男子长跑项目上整国所获得的奖牌数。 If we begin in 1964, the first Olympics to which Kenya sent more than a token contingent, and if we exclude the two Olympics that Kenya boycotted - 1976 and 1980 - the nearest national total is the 10 medals won by the U.S. Next, I am happy to tell you, is Britain, with eight. Fourth place, seven medals, is a tie between Morocco and non-Kalenjin Kenya. 如果我们从1964年算起(这一年开始肯尼亚不像过去那样只派出了一支象征性的代表队参加奥运会),再除去1976和1980这两届肯尼亚所抵制的奥运会的话,奖牌总数与卡伦津人最接近的国家是美国,它取得了10块奖牌。我很乐意告诉你,下一位是英国,获得了8块奖牌。摩洛哥和去除卡伦津人后的肯尼亚并列第四,分获7块奖牌。 Here are the leading national totals, medals and gold medals. As you can see, in the Olympics in which they have fully participated, Kalenjin distance men have won nearly three times as many medals and three times as many golds as rivals from any whole country. 以下是在奖牌和金牌数处于领先地位的国家。你可以看到,在卡伦津人正式参与的奥运会上,他们的男子长跑选手获得的奖牌数和金牌数都是其他任何国家一整国的竞争者所获数量的近三倍。
MEDALS, MEN’S TRACK EVENTS 800m TO 10,000m 奖牌数,男子径赛项目800米到10,000米
Olympic Games, 1964-96 (excluding boycotted Games of 1976 & 1980) 奥运会,1964-96(除遭到抵制的1976届和1980届)
All Medals 奖牌数 Gold           金牌数
Kalenjin 卡伦津 26 8
USA 美国 10 3
GB 英国 8 1
Non-Kalenjin Kenya 非卡伦津肯尼亚 7 4
Morocco 摩洛哥 7 3
Germany (East & West) 德国(东德和西德) 6 1
Ethiopia 埃塞俄比亚 5 1
Finland 芬兰 4 3
New Zealand 新西兰 4 2
Tunisia 突尼斯 4 1
Until 1983, the Olympics were the only worldwide open competition in track and field. But in that year the sport’s governing body introduced the Athletics World Championships, which provide Olympic-level competition without the Olympics’ political baggage. 1983年以前,奥运会是仅有的世界性田径公开赛。但是在1983年,该项运动的管理组织引入了世界田径锦标赛,这项赛事既能提供奥林匹克级别的比赛,又没有奥运会的政治包袱。 Kenya has participated in each of the five World Championships so far, and Kalenjin distance men have built a record much like the one they have established in the Olympics: 17 medals and nine golds. The countries that come closest are Germany (East plus West), with eight medals and two golds, Morocco with seven medals and one gold, and non-Kalenjin Kenya, with five and three. 肯尼亚迄今为止参与了五次世界田径锦标赛,卡伦津男子长跑选手取得了和在奥运会一样瞩目的成绩:17块奖牌和9块金牌。成绩和他们最为接近的国家有德国(东德和西德),8块奖牌,2块金牌;摩洛哥,7块奖牌,1块金牌;非卡伦津肯尼亚,5块奖牌,3块金牌。 If we concentrate on more recent worldwide competition - say, in the last 10 years - the medal totals become altogether lopsided. In three Olympics and three World Championships, Kalenjin distance runners have won 31 medals and 12 golds in men’s track events - 34% and 40%, respectively, of the available totals. 如果我们把目光聚焦到最近的世界级赛事上,比如说最近十年,奖牌总数完全是一边倒的情况。在三届奥运会和三届世锦赛上,卡伦津长跑选手在男子径赛项目上赢得了31块奖牌和12块金牌,分别占总数的34%和40%。 The nearest whole countries are Morocco with 11 medals and Algeria with four golds (all won by NoureddineMorceli), each total equal to about one-third that of the single Kenyan tribe. So much for medals. 与他们的成绩最接近的国家是获得11块奖牌的摩洛哥和获得4块金牌(均由Noureddine Morceli赢得)的阿尔及利亚,这些成绩相当于肯尼亚一个部落(卡伦津)取得的大约三分之一。关于奖牌的问题先说到这里。 The other gauges of success on the track involve recorded times. The most comprehensive of these are what are called all-time lists, which set out in order the top performers in the whole history of an event, strictly on the basis of their best recorded times. As you might expect, Kalenjin runners are well represented. Here are the number of Kalenjin appearing in the all-time lists for the five Olympic distance events at three different levels–top 10, top 20 and top 50: 径赛成绩好的另一个标准是时间记录。其中最全面的被叫做全时间排名,这个表严格按照最好成绩的顺序列出了一个项目历史上所有的顶尖选手。如你所料,卡伦津选手在这个表上大放异彩。这里列出了卡伦津人在五个奥运会长跑项目中在全时间排名上出现的次数,分为三个档次,前十、前二十和前五十:
NUMBER OF KALENJIN IN MEN’S ALL-TIME LISTS 卡伦津人在男子全时间排名上出现的次数
Event 项目 Number of Kalenjin 卡伦津出现人次
Top 10 前十 Top 20 前二十 Top 50 前五十
800 2 7 13
1500 0 4 13
5,000 3 6 13
10,000 5 7 13
3,000米障碍赛 9 13 20
19/50 37/100 72/250
38% 37% 29%
If we tally up these figures for all five events, we find that members of the tribe make up 38% of the all-time top 10, 37% of the top 20 and 29% of the top 50. But even these numbers do not quite convey Kalenjin runners’enormous recent impact. 如果我们把所有五个项目的数据加总,会发现这个部落的成员占据了全时间序列列表前十名的38%,前二十名的37%,前五十名的29%。但是,甚至这些数字都不能很好地展现卡伦津长跑运动员近年来所带来的巨大影响。 That shows up more clearly in annual rankings from the last several years. These are also based solely on recorded times. Here are the numbers of Kalenjin in the top 10 in the five years from 1992 to ’96: 这些影响在最近几年的年度排名上得以更好地体现。这些排名也是完全基于时间记录。这里列出了卡伦津人在1992到1996年这五年间占据前十名的人数:
NUMBER OF KALENJIN IN ANNUAL TOP TEN LISTS 年度前十排名表中的卡伦津人
Event 项目 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996
800 4 5 4 5 5
1500 4 2 2 2 6
5,000 3 3 3 5 3
10,000 2 4 3 4 5
3,000米障碍赛 7 4 6 9 9
20 18 18 25 28
40% 36% 36% 50% 56%
Another quick tally reveals that in the last five years Kalenjin runners occupied 43.6% of the top ten spots in the five men’s endurance events. Take this together with their 38% of the top-ten spots on the all-time lists for those events, and the 34% of all Olympic and World Championship medals they have won in those events since 1988. Then throw in their collection of world bests in road racing and the incredible 50% of all men’s medals that they have won at the World Cross Country Championships since 1986, and you can boil this down to the generalization I made at the beginning: in recent years, of the biggest worldwide honors available in men’s distance running, Kalenjin runners have won something like 40%. 又一个简单的加总显示,在最近五年里,卡伦津选手占据了五个男子耐力项目前十名的43.6%。把这个数据加上其全时间排名中这些项目前十名的比例——38%,再加上自从1988年以来他们在这些项目上获得的奥运会和世锦赛奖牌的比例——34%,再算上他们在公路跑中所获得的世界纪录,以及自1986年以来获得的国际田联世界越野锦标赛的男子奖牌总数——不可思议的50%,然后,你就能得出我在文章开头所给出的概括:近些年,卡伦津跑步运动员获得了世界上所有男子长跑重量级荣誉的大约40%。 I contend that this record marks the greatest geographical concentration of achievement in the annals of sport, and if we had time I would welcome arguments to the contrary, but for now, let us look at what makes these people so good. There has been a fair amount of published speculation on this subject. I am going to look at a few of these ideas, and then I am going to offer a couple of suggestions of my own. 我坚信这个记录是运动史上最大规模的成就地理集中现象。如果有时间的话我很欢迎有人提出反对意见,但是现在,让我们看看是什么让这些人的表现如此优异。关于这个问题已经发表过很多观点。我将分析其中一部分,然后提出一些我自己的看法。 Altitude is most people’s first thought, and with reason. 2,000 meter elevations are common in Kalenjin country, and leading a vigorous outdoor life in the thin air at such altitudes has been shown to help create the high aerobic capacity that is vital to distance running success. 海拔是多数人首先想到的解释,不无道理。海拔2000米在卡伦津是非常普遍的,在这种海拔高、空气稀薄的环境下过一种十分活跃的户外生活,被证实有助于增强供氧能力,这种能力对于长跑来说至关重要。 Every athletics fan has heard stories of runners’ childhoods in these highlands spent covering mile upon mile chasing cattle or - to cite the contemporary chestnut - jogging back and forth to school. 每一个田径迷都听过流传于坊间的关于这些长跑选手在高地度过童年的轶事,故事里他们跑了一英里又一英里去追赶牛群,或者是在学校和家之间来回奔波,后者已成为一种当代的老调。 The question is, why have these circumstances been so much more helpful to the Kalenjin than to other high-altitude dwellers? Where are the world-class athletes from Nepal, Peru and Lesotho? And what about elsewhere in Kenya? A dozen tribes around the country lead similar lives at comparable altitudes and have produced no notable runners. 问题是,为什么这些环境对卡伦津人的影响要远远大于其他高海拔地区的居民呢?尼泊尔、秘鲁和莱索托的世界级运动员在哪呢?肯尼亚其他地区的世界级运动员又在哪呢?该国境内有许多部落都在近似海拔过着相似的生活,但是没有诞生任何著名长跑运动员。 How about diet? When I first wrote about Kalenjin runners 20 years ago, nutritional theories of the time ascribed benefits to the relatively high proportion of protein in their diet (from cow’s milk and blood) compared with the diets of other African peoples. 那么饮食呢?20年前,当我第一次撰写有关卡伦津长跑运动员的文章时,当时的营养学理论认为,较之其他非洲人的饮食,卡伦津人饮食中相对较高的蛋白质含量(来自牛奶和牛血)给他们带来了优势。 Actually, by Western standards, Kalenjin protein intake was pretty low - lower still among mess-fed soldiers and school boys,from whose ranks most of the athletes come. 事实上,按照西方标准,卡伦津人的蛋白质摄入非常低。吃大食堂的军人和学生比一般人又要更低,而大部分运动员来自这群体。 These days, however, conventional dietary wisdom touts “complex carbohydrates,” and Kenyans’ starchy fare has been cited as a possible source of runners’ strength in several recent TV programs and articles in the consumer press. There is no question that the Kalenjin do live on a starchy diet. But then so do most Third World peoples. Starch, after all, is what subsistence farmers produce. 然而,最近,传统营养学已在宣扬“复合碳水化合物”,肯尼亚人的高淀粉饮食也被近期一些电视节目和消费者杂志文章认为可能是跑步运动员的力量之源。诚然,卡伦津人的饮食确实以淀粉类为主,但是,第三世界的人民绝大多数都是这样。不管怎么说,勉强糊口的农民也只能生产淀粉类食物。 Material incentives are the time-honored explanation for ethnic disproportion in professional sports - the classic examples in my country being the succession of Irish, Italian, Black and Latino boxers from the wrong side of the tracks. By this line of thinking, the downtrodden groups’ inordinate success results from hordes of boys taking up boxing because they see it as an escape route from their desperate poverty. 物质激励是对专业运动员中种族比例不均衡的一个历史悠久的解释——在我国,典型的例子是一系列贫民窟出身的爱尔兰裔、意大利裔、非裔和拉丁裔拳击手。按照这种思路,这些受压迫群体的极度成功源自大批小伙子把练习拳击当作逃离极端贫困的一条出路。 The same reasoning is often applied to running in Kenya today. The availability, first of U.S. college scholarships and now prize money and appearance fees, has had a demonstrable effect in boosting interest and participation throughout the country. But the Kalenjin were turning out world-class runners long before such rewards became available, and they continue to turn out three times as many as the rest of Kenya’s tribes combined, incentives or no incentives. 同样的推理现在也经常被安在肯尼亚的长跑成就上。起先是可以获得美国的大学奖学金,现在是可以获得奖金和出场费,这对于激发全国性的兴趣和参与有着显而易见的影响。但是卡伦津人早在这些奖励出现之前就诞生了许多世界级的长跑选手,并且无论有没有物质激励,它现在产出的优秀长跑运动运数量仍是其他肯尼亚部落总和的三倍。 Clearly, none of these factors is a sufficient explanation for Kalenjin success, but neither can they be dismissed out of hand. Altitude by itself, for example, does not account for much. But when you combine 2,000 meter elevations with equatorial latitudes, you get an ideal climate for sustained outdoor activity - comfortably warm days, cool nights, low humidity. 显然,这些因素都不能充分解释卡伦津人的成功,但也没有一条能被排除在外。举例来说,单就海拔而言,它并没有起太大作用,但是当你把2000米的海拔高度与赤道纬度相结合,就得到了持续户外活动的理想气候——温暖舒适的白天、凉爽的夜晚、较低的湿度。 That, together with altitude’s aerobic benefits, begins to show why Kenya’s highlands as a whole are an ideal home for distance running. And it is worth pointing out that while about a quarter of Kenya’s population lives in comparatively sultry conditions at altitudes below 1,200 meters, every one of the country’s world class runners is a highlander. 这和高海拔对供氧能力的益处结合在一起,初步解释了为什么整个肯尼亚高地地区是长跑运动员的理想家园。值得指出的是,尽管有大约四分之一的肯尼亚人生活在海拔低于1200米,且相对闷热的环境里,但这个国家的每一个世界级长跑运动员都是高地人。 Diet, too, has some significance, though I doubt if it has much to do with complex carbohydrates. Rather, it is that, like most Kenyans, and unlike many of the world’s poor, the Kalenjin have enough to eat. The simple fact that Western Kenya has a lot of excellent farm land and a reliable food supply sets the country apart from many places that might otherwise be breeding grounds for runners. 饮食同样具有一些重要的影响,尽管我对复合碳水化合物是否真有那么大的影响持怀疑态度。其实,就像大部分肯尼亚人一样,卡伦津人跟世界上其他穷人不同,他们有足够的食物。一个简单的事实就是肯尼亚西部有许多非常好的农田,有稳定的食物供给,使得这个国家在众多可能成为长跑运动员温床的国家中独树一帜。 That brings me back to poverty, which is also an important factor, but not quite in the clichéd sense of an oppressively grim environment that drives young men to train maniacally as they dream of escape. Rural western Kenya, where almost all the runners come from, is a far cry from a teeming slum or a grimy coal field. It is a land of beautiful green hills, not unlike Somerset or Wiltshire. 这使我回到对贫穷问题的关注。贫穷也是一个重要的因素,但是我想说的不是诸如残酷的环境让年轻人期盼着逃离这个地方而狂热地训练这种陈词滥调。西肯尼亚的农村地区,也就是几乎所有长跑运动员的家乡,是一个和拥挤的贫民窟或者肮脏的煤矿相去甚远的地方。这片土地遍布美丽的绿色山丘,和萨默塞特郡或威尔特郡倒是挺像。 And compared with other African countries, Kenya is fairly well supplied with basic necessities. Malnutrition is rare, infant mortality is among the lowest in Africa, life expectancy and literacy among the highest. More than 85% of all children attend at least a few years of primary school. And the country has been able to support the institutions - schools, uniformed services - that provide a fairly solid athletic infrastructure. So Kenya is at least prosperous enough to provide athletic opportunities. 与其他非洲国家相比,肯尼亚在基本生活必需品方面供给良好。营养不良很少见,婴儿死亡率是非洲最低的,预期寿命和识字率是非洲最高的。超过85%的儿童至少能上几年小学。而且,这个国家能够供养学校和各种公共服务机构,这为运动员的出现提供了相当雄厚的基础。因此肯尼亚的繁荣程度至少足够支撑体育发展机会。 Yet the people are poor, and unemployment is high. Kenya’s per capita Gross Domestic Product is about $1,200 a year, less than 1/20th the figure of a prosperous Western country. This means that to the average Kenyan, even the meager winnings brought in by most professional or semiprofessional runners look pretty lavish. 然而,肯尼亚人生活贫困,失业率高。肯尼亚人均国内生产总值大约是1200美元,不足西方富裕国家的1/20。这意味着对于普通肯尼亚人来说,绝大多数职业或半职业长跑运动员再微不足道的比赛奖金也是相当丰厚的。 The prospect of earning, say, $10,000 a year as a second- or third-rank road racer is a powerful incentive, and in view of the hundreds of Kenyans now making that kind of money, not an unrealistic ambition. Someone who thinks he has potential as a runner might quite reasonably devote a year or two to intensive training in the hope of attracting the attention of an agent and landing an invitation to a foreign road race or track meet. 比如,做一个二流或者三流的长跑运动员,预期年收入10000美元,是一种相当强的激励,而且现在就有数百肯尼亚运动员能挣到这样的收入,这样看来,这至少不是一个不切实际的野心。那些认为自己有当长跑运动员天赋的人,可能会自然而然地实施一两年的大强度训练,希望获得经纪人的注意,然后被邀请参加国外的公路赛或者田径运动会。 Still, while there is something in each of these - altitude, diet, poverty - that helps explain the phenomenon of Kenyan running as a whole, none of them begins to account for the hugely disproportionate success of the Kalenjin. For that, we have to look more closely at circumstances unique to the tribe. 然而,尽管海拔、饮食、贫穷这三个因素都对解释肯尼亚全国的长跑奇迹有所帮助,但是其中任何一个都不足以解释卡伦津人在这一成就中所占的奇高比例。为此,我们必须更详尽地观察这个部落的所处环境的独特之处。 An obvious thought is that the Kalenjin might be endowed with some sort of collective genetic gift. This is touchy stuff, of course, and there is nothing like replicable scientific data to support the idea. But the prima facie case for a genetic explanation makes some sense: the Kalenjin marry mainly among themselves; they have lived for centuries at altitudes of 2,000 meters or more; and, at least by tradition, they spend their days chasing up and down hills after livestock. So it is not unreasonable to suggest that over time some sort of genetic adaptation has taken place that has turned out to be helpful in competitive distance running. 一个容易想到的观点是,卡伦津人可能天生就具有某种集体性的遗传优势。当然,这是个敏感话题,而且目前还没有可复现的科学数据来支持这个观点。但是遗传解释初看起来确实有一定合理性:卡伦津人主要是族内通婚;他们已经在海拔2000米或更高的地方生存了几个世纪;并且至少从传统上来说,他们成天在山丘上跑上跑下,追逐牲畜。所以,随着时间推移,发生了某种有助于竞争性长跑项目表现的遗传适应,这样的说法并非没有道理。 This notion gets some flimsy support from the fact that linguistic data link the Kalenjin to tribes elsewhere in East Africa that have turned out a majority of their countries’ world class runners: these groups, all of them historically pastoral as opposed to agricultural, include the Oromo in Ethiopia, the Iraqw and Barabaig in Tanzania and the Tutsi in Burundi. There is a temptation to imagine a race of lean, cattle-herding uebermenschen wandering up and down the Rift Valley. 这种观点得到了一些语言学资料的支持,但不是特别牢靠。这些资料显示,卡伦津人和东非其它出现过许多世界级长跑选手的部落有关联:这些群体历史上以畜牧而非农业为生,包括埃塞俄比亚的奥罗莫人,坦桑尼亚的伊拉奎人和巴拉拜格人,以及布隆迪的图西人。人们不禁会想象出一个由精壮的牧牛超人组成的种族上下漫游于东非大裂谷的景象。 What I find more intriguing, however, is the possibility that some of these peoples’ customs might have functioned indirectly as genetic selection mechanisms favoring strong runners. I am thinking specifically of the practice of cattle theft - euphemistically known as cattle raiding. It was common to all these pastoral peoples, but in Kenya, at least, the Kalenjin were it is foremost practitioners. Of course they did not regard it as theft; they were merely repossessing cattle that were theirs by divine right and happened to have fallen into other hands. 然而,让我感觉更奇妙的是,这些民族的某些习俗可能间接地提供了有利于优秀长跑选手的基因选择机制。我想到的是偷牲畜行为——委婉地说就是牲畜突袭。对于这些畜牧民族来说这是件很寻常的事情,但是至少在肯尼亚,卡伦津人是最主要的从事此道者。当然他们不认为这是盗窃;他们只是拿回上天赋予他们的却又碰巧落入他人之手的牲畜。 Never mind that those into whose hands the cattle had fallen often felt the same way. Anyway, Kalenjin raids often called for treks of more than 100 miles to capture livestock and drive them home before their former owners could catch up. The better a young man was at raiding – in large part, a function of his speed and endurance - the more cattle he accumulated. 那些手里碰巧捡到牲畜的人也是这么想的,但是此处不必考虑这一点。不管怎么说,卡伦津式的突袭经常需要跋涉100英里以上,来抓住牲畜并且在前任主人追上之前把牲畜赶回家。一个年轻人越是善于“突袭”,他能积累的牲畜就越多,而在突袭中很大程度上就是他的速度和耐力在起作用。 And since cattle were what a prospective husband needed to pay for a bride, the more a young man had, the more wives he could buy, and the more children he was likely to father. It is not hard to imagine that such a reproductive advantage might cause a significant shift in a group’s genetic makeup over the course of a few centuries. 而且,牲畜就是未来新郎需要支付给新娘的聘礼,因此一个年轻人拥有的牲畜越多,他能买下的妻子也就越多,进而就能有更多的孩子。不难想象,在数百年的时间里,这种生殖优势可能使一个种群的基因组成发生巨大变化。 Much as I enjoy this sort of speculation, however, a different kind of data is needed to substantiate anything approaching a scientific genetic theory, and so far none exists. 尽管我对这种推测乐在其中,但是我们需要其他类型的数据来证实这种现象可以用科学的遗传理论来解释,不过迄今为止这种数据并不存在。 The most rigorous work to date has been done by the Swedish exercise physiologist Bengt Saltin, who took a team of researchers to western Kenya in 1990 and conducted elaborate treadmill tests and muscle biopsies on several dozen Kenyan men, all of whom happened to be Kalenjin. 目前最为严谨的实验是由瑞典运动生理学家Bengt Saltin于1990年带领一队研究人员在西肯尼亚实施的。实验对几十个肯尼亚男子进行了细致的跑步机上运动测试和肌肉活检,而这些实验对象恰巧都是卡伦津人。 He discovered unusual features in his subjects’ muscle tissue and response to physical exertion, but he concluded that these were probably the result of the Kenyans’ lifetime of vigorous activity at altitude. 他发现,实验对象的肌肉组织和对体能消耗的反应模式有一些非同寻常的特征,但他认为这些很可能是肯尼亚人终生都在高海拔地区剧烈活动的结果。 One of his findings does suggest the possibility that the Kalenjin evince uncommon “trainability” - the capacity to increase aerobic efficiency with training - and research by the Canadian geneticist Claude Bouchard has shown this trait to be largely hereditary. 他的调查结果之一确实表明,卡伦津人展现出了非同寻常的“可训练性” ——即能通过训练提升供氧能力。同时,加拿大遗传学家Claude Bouchard的研究则表明,这种特征很大程度上来自遗传。 Before drawing any firm conclusions about Kalenjin gifts, however, further studies would have to determine that trainability - or any other heritable trait - was truly instrumental in distance running success and that ordinary Kalenjin exhibit the trait to an unusual degree. 然而,在对卡伦津人的天赋作出任何确切结论之前,需要进一步研究以便确定这种可训练性或者任何其他遗传特性真的在长跑的成功方面起了作用,而且普通卡伦津人身上这一特征也表现出了已不同寻常的水平。 Without such evidence, notions of Kalenjin genetic superiority rest onanecdotal data - and as you might imagine, there is an abundance of that, some of it surprisingly persuasive. My favorite data of this sort are a dozen brief “case studies” I have collected of Kalenjin young men in their 20s who had never thought of themselves as runners at all until they wound up in circumstances that more or less obliged them to take up the sport. 没有这种证据佐证,卡伦津人有基因优势这种说法就只是停留在坊间传闻罢了——你可能会觉得,这种传闻还挺多的,一些还非常有说服力。这种类型的资料中,我最喜欢的是我收集的十几个简短个案研究。这些研究的主要对象是一些二十多岁的卡伦津年轻人,在多多少少受境况所迫而参与这项运动之前,他们从没想过自己能是长跑运动员。 Most often this was because friends who were runners helped them to secure American track scholarships under false pretenses, and once on campus,the non-runners had to run in order to stay. In each case, what happened when they started training is quite remarkable. I will give one example. 大多数情况都是,他们的跑步运动员朋友通过作假的手段帮他们拿到了美国的径赛运动员奖学金,一旦他们进入校园,为了留在学校,这些非运动员不得不硬着头皮开始跑步。在每个案例中,当他们开始训练之后,结果都十分优秀。我在这里举个例子。 Paul Rotich is the son of a prosperous Kalenjin farmer. The father wanted his son to go to college in the U.S., and in 1988, when Paul was 22, he was packed off to South Plains Junior College in Texas, where there were several other Kalenjin already enrolled, all of them on track scholarships. Paul Rotich是一个富裕的卡伦津农民的儿子,这位父亲想要让他的儿子去美国念大学。1988年,当Paul 22岁时,他被送到了位于德克萨斯的南方平原专科学校。当时已经有其他一些卡伦津人入读这所学校,都拿着径赛运动员奖学金。 Rotich, however, went with no scholarship but with $10,000 his father had managed to collect, a sum that should have been plenty to pay his tuition, room and board for two years. By the end of the first year, though, Paul found that he had spent $8,000, and he realized he had to do something to get himself through the next year. 然而,Rotich去的时候没有奖学金,而是带着他父亲筹集到的10,000美元。这笔钱本该足够负担他两年的学费和食宿费。但是第一年结束的时候,Paul发现他已经花了8000美元,他意识到他必须做点什么来让他度过下一年。 Under the circumstances, the first thing that came to mind was a track scholarship. Trouble was, he had never run a race in his life, and he was fat – 85 kilos (13 and 1/2 stone) at a height of 1.73 meters (5 ft. 8 in.). He began training - running at night because he was embarrassed to be seen lumbering around the track. In the autumn hemanaged to make the cross-country team, and by the end of the season he finished in the top 50 in the national junior college championships. 在这种情况下,他能想到的第一件就是径赛运动员奖学金。问题是他一生中从未参加过赛跑,而且他很胖——身高1.73米(5英尺8寸),体重85公斤(13.5英石)。他开始实施训练,他通常在晚上跑步,因为羞于让人看到他在跑道上笨拙的姿态。秋天的时候他设法加入了越野跑队,赛季临近尾声时他进入了全国专科学校锦标赛前50名。 But that was just the beginning. He landed a track scholarship - to nearby Lubbock Christian University - and over the next two years he earned “All- American” honors 10 times in cross country and various track events. When he went back to Kenya and told his cousin what he had done, the cousin replied, “So, it is true. If you can run, any Kalenjin can run.” 但这还只是个开始。他得到了径赛运动员奖学金,并进入了附近的拉伯克基督教大学。在随后的两年中,他还在越野赛和其他径赛项目上取得了10次“全美最佳”的荣誉。当他回到肯尼亚,把他的事迹告诉他堂兄之后,他堂兄说:“所以,这都是真的。要是你都能跑,那任何卡伦津人就都能跑。” It may be true, and if it is, it may be because of some as yet unspecified genetic endowment. But even if the Kalenjinare blessed with an innate physical gift, that does not account for their astonishing record in major championships. To succeed in those circumstances, an athlete must not only be able to run fast, but to run fastest when it matters most. And in this, the ability to rise to the occasion, to perform under pressure, the Kalenjinare supreme. 这可能是真的,而且如果真是这样的话,可能是因为某些尚未查清的遗传天赋。但是即使卡伦津人被赐予了这种先天身体优势,这也不能解释他们在重大比赛中的惊人记录。想要在这些比赛中取得胜利,运动员必须不仅能跑得快,还需要在重要时刻能发挥出最佳成绩。在这方面,应对自如的能力、在压力之下的表现,卡伦津人都是其中的佼佼者。 I have tried to quantify this ability by evaluating performances in the most pressure-laden of all athletic events, the Olympic Games, and to compare Kalenjin performances with those of their rivals in the distance events. The aim was to rate performances not just in terms of medals or finishing places but in comparison to each athlete’s pre-Olympic personal best. 奥运会是所有体育赛事中压力最大的比赛,我曾试着通过评估运动员在其中的表现来量化这种能力,并且把卡伦津人在长跑项目中的表现和其竞争对手进行比较。这样做的目的是,不仅仅通过奖牌数或者最终排名来评估他们的表现,而是通过与每位运动员奥运会前个人最好成绩进行对比来评估。 The base line, 0, was what I judged to be a respectable but undistinguished Olympic performance: not getting a medal, not reaching the final but coming close - within half a percent - of the pre-Olympic PB. In the 1500 meters, that means within about a second. I gave positive points for reaching the final, finishing in the top eight and for winning medals, and also for improving a personal best by various percentages, negative points for failing to finish and for falling short of a personal best by various percentages. Here is a summary of the scoring system: 基准线为0,表示我认为该运动员在奥运会上的表现值得尊敬但不出众:没能获得奖牌,没有进入决赛,但是成绩和参加奥运会之前的个人最好成绩接近——相差0.5%以内。在1500米的比赛中,这意味着不到一秒。进入决赛、得到前八名、赢得奖牌以及提升了个人最好成绩的(无论多少百分点)我都会给予正分;没能完成比赛、未能达到个人最佳成绩的(无论多少百分点)我都会给负分。以下是这个打分系统的概要:
PERFORMANCE UNDER PRESSURE – Point System 压力下的表现——积分系统
Base line: 0 = <0.5% slower than pre-Olympic PB, not finalist, not medalist. 基准线:0分标准:参赛成绩较之参加奥运会之前个人最佳成绩降幅不大于0.5%,未进入决赛,未获得奖牌
Positive points: 正分项
+1 for reaching final 进入决赛 +1 +1 for PR by <1 % 超过个人记录小于1% +1
+2 for reaching top eight 进入前八 +2 +2 for PR by >1 % but <2 %...etc. 超过个人记录大于1%小于2% +2以此类推
+3 for bronze 获得铜牌 +3 +1 additional for PR in final 在决赛破个人记录额外+1
+4 for silver 获得银牌 +4 +1 additional for OR (no WRs in sample) 破奥运记录额外+1(没有世界纪录样本)
+6 for gold 获得金牌 +6
Negative points for times slower than pre-Olympic PB by >0.5% (e.g. — 1 for time >0.5% but <1% below PB; —2 for time >1 % but <2 % below PB, etc.) 负分是给予较之参加奥运会之前的个人最佳成绩下降幅度大于0.5%的比赛成绩(例如降幅大于0.5%小于1%计负一分,大于1%小于2%计负二分,等等) I evaluated every performance of every Kenyan in men’s track events from 800 m to 10,000 m, for every Olympics from 1964 to 1996, and I did the same for the two countries with the next best records in terms of medals, the U.S. and Britain. I paid special attention to first Olympic appearances, figuring that’s when the athletes felt the greatest pressure. Here’s a briefrundown of the aggregate scores: 我对每一位肯尼亚男子选手在1964-1996奥运会上从800米到10000米径赛的每一次表现都进行了评估,并且对奖牌榜上紧随肯尼亚之后的两个国家:美国和英国进行了同样的评估。我尤其注意运动员第一次参加奥运会表现,因为我认为这是运动员压力最大的时刻。下列是总分概要: USA – aggregate score 美国——总分 —107 for 82 men in 104 appearances in 7 OG 七届奥运会82人(男性)出场104次,共负107分 —120 for 75 men in first OG appearances 75人(男性)第一次参加奥运会,共负120分 Avg. per man: —1.30 个人平均分:负1.3 Avg. per man – first appearance: —1.60 奥运首秀个人平均分:负1.6 Avg. per appearance —1.03 出场平均分:负1.03 9 PBs; 7 PBs in finals 9项个人记录;决赛中出现7次个人记录 Great Britain - aggregate score 英国——总分 —95 for 76 men in 92 appearances in 7 OG 七届奥运会76人(男性)出场92次,共负95分 —76 for 67 men in their first OG appearances 67人(男性)第一次参加奥运会,共负76分 Avg. per man: —1.25 个人平均分:负1.25 Avg. per man – first appearance: —1.13 奥运首秀个人平均分:负1.13 Avg. per appearance —1.03 出场平均分:负1.03 6 PBs; 5 PBs in finals 6项个人记录;决赛中出现5次个人记录 Non-Kalenjin Kenya – aggregate score 非卡伦津肯尼亚人——总分 +49 for 18 men in 24 appearances in 7 OG 七届奥运会18人(男性)出场24次,共正49分 +30 for 17 men in first OG appearances. 17人(男性)第一次参加奥运会,共正30分 Avg. per man: +2.72 个人平均分:正1.25 Avg. per man – first appearance: +1.76 奥运首秀个人平均分:正1.13 Avg. per appearance +2.04 出场平均分:正2.04 9 PBs; 7 PBs in finals 9项个人记录;决赛中出现7次个人记录 Kalenjin 卡伦津人——总分 +175 for 41 men in 59 appearances in 7 OG 七届奥运会41人(男性)出场59次,共正175分 +122 for 41 men in first OG appearances. 41人(男性)第一次参加奥运会,共正122分 Avg. per man: +4.27 个人平均分:正4.27 Avg. per man – first appearance: +2.98 奥运首秀个人平均分:正2.98 Avg. per appearance +2.97 出场平均分:正2.97 25 PBs; 15 PBs in finals 25项个人记录;决赛中出现15次个人记录 What accounts for this extraordinary difference? What is it that gives seemingly every Kalenjin runner the ability to summon a supreme effort when it matters most? We tend to think of such emotional strengths as acquired rather than inherited, though of course there’s the possibility that cattle raiding or some other custom might have conferred a reproductive advantage upon, say, individuals who stood firm in crises, and that that faculty was somehow passed on. But I am inclined to believe this ability is the result of conditioning - that the tribe’s austere warrior culture prepares young Kalenjin almost from birth not to quail under pressure. 是什么导致了这种巨大的差异?是什么赐予了几乎每一位卡伦津选手越是重要场合越能唤起最强斗志的能力?我们倾向于认为这种情感力量是习得的而不是天生的,尽管突袭牲畜或者其他一些风俗当然有可能赋予那些临危不倒的人以生殖优势,并且这种能力会以某种方式遗传了下来。但是我倾向于相信这种能力来自于条件作用——这个部落严酷的武士文化让年轻的卡伦津人几乎从出生开始就做好了不向任何压力低头的准备。 The most obvious and probably the most significant set of customs in this regard is the series of escalating physical ordeals each child undergoes while growing up, culminating in circumcision, which marks initiation into adulthood. Circumcision is the central event in the life of every Kalenjin youth, anticipated for years with dread, and suffered with unblinking stoicism under the eyes of watchful elders, who are ready to brand a boy a coward for life if he so much as winces. It is not hard to see how this rite might help develop a capacity to put up with pain, which, of course, is vital in running long races. 最明显且可能最重要的风俗,是每个孩子在成长中都会经历的一系列逐渐加剧的生理折磨,这种折磨在标志着成人生涯开始的割礼中达到顶峰。对于每个肯尼亚年轻人来说,割礼是生命中的核心事件。他们在满怀恐惧地等待多年后,在长者的监视下无声地忍受巨大的痛苦。如果年轻人畏缩的话,这些成年人时刻准备着给他们终生打上懦夫的烙印。不难明白这个仪式是如何帮助他们建立起对于长跑比赛至关重要的对痛苦的忍耐能力的。 But circumcision is far from unique to the Kalenjin. Dozens of societies in Kenya and hundreds elsewhere in Africa use more or less the same operation for more or less the same purpose; in many the rite has much the same significance and is accompanied by comparable community-wide commotion. 但是割礼并非是卡伦津人独有的。许多肯尼亚社群和成百上千的其他非洲社群都或多或少地出于相似目的而采取这个手术。许多情况下这个仪式有相同的重要性,而且会伴有相当程度的全体骚动。 For this reason, I was at first inclined to look beyond circumcision for whatever it was in Kalenjin culture that gave the runners their special strength. I changed my mind after going to a couple of circumcision ceremonies. 出于这个原因,我最初倾向于在割礼之外,从卡伦津文化的其它要素中,去寻找长跑选手的特殊能力来源。但是在参加了几次割礼仪式之后,我改变了这一想法。 I do not have time now to give a detailed account of what I saw, but when I compared it to what I was able to glean about other initiation rites from standard ethnographies and cross-cultural studies, I found what I think are significant differences. 我现在没有时间详述我的见闻,但是当我将之和我能收集到的标准民族志和跨文化研究中记载的成年礼进行比较时,我发现了我认为极为显著的差异。 They are not in kind, but in degree. In general, the Kalenjin rite and the long recovery period that follows are invested with greater secrecy and solemnity, and with greater importance as a means of inculcating standards of behavior. The operation itself is more physically arduous and the sanctions for failure more severe (flinching in fear or pain can result in what amounts to a kind of permanent internal banishment). 这种差异不在于仪式的种类,而在于程度上。总的来说,卡伦津的仪式和随之而来的漫长恢复期被赋予了更多的私密性和庄重性。作为一种行为准则的灌输方式,它有着更重要的意义。手术本身带来的生理痛苦更大,而且对于失败的惩罚更为严重(源于恐惧或疼痛的退缩,可能导致的后果相当于永久的内部放逐)。 Perhaps most important is the pervasive sense among adults, children and initiates that the traits of character tested in the ritual - courage, endurance, determination, restraint - are the ones the tribe values above all, and that to pass the test is to affirm those values, to fail it is to betray them. 也许最重要的是在成人、孩子、以及新青年心中蕴含的普遍观念,即在仪式中所检验的性格特征——勇气、忍耐、决心、克制,是整个部落最珍视的价值。通过测试就是认可这些价值,而失败则意味着背叛。 Thus as the initiates approach the predawn ceremony, they’re quite conscious of bearing the weight not only of their own fears and hopes and those of their family and friends, but also those of the whole community, the tribe and centuries of Kalenjin tradition. 因此,当这些新青年临近这种黎明前的仪式的时候,他们非常清楚地意识到他们背负的不仅仅是自己的恐惧和希望,此外还有家人和朋友的,他们甚至还背负了整个社群,整个部落以及卡伦津数百年传统的恐惧和希望。 A boy who stands up under that kind of pressure at 14 or 15 is unlikely at 25 to be anything but invigorated by the comparatively benign tensions accompanying an Olympic final. And if he was able as a boy to muster the strength to endure the excruciating pain of circumcision, what must he be able to do as a man when faced with nothing more than the aches and fatigue of the closing laps of a tough race. 一个在十四五岁时就承受过这种压力的男孩,在二十五岁面临奥运会决赛的相对良性的压力时,不可能会被击垮,这种压力反而会让他们更加斗志昂扬。而且如果当他是个小男孩的时候,他能调动所有力量忍受割礼的剧痛,那么成年之后当他面临艰难赛事的最后一圈带来的痛苦和疲劳时,他也一定能够度过这一关。 Now, as a final note, since this is a gathering of British sports historians, I would like to bring up another possible reason for Kalenjin success that has to do with a British colonial law enforcement policy. I once had high hopes for this idea, but up to now I have not had much luck finding evidence to support it. 最后,由于这是一本英国运动史学家的文集,我想要提出卡伦津人成功的另一个可能原因,即和英国殖民法律实施政策相关。我曾经对这个观点抱有很大期望,但是至今我还没有发现足够的证据来支持它。 I have talked about cattle raiding. In the early part of the century, it was endemic in Western Kenya, and the colonial administration went to some lengths to stamp it out. Because the Kalenjin were the most frequent offenders, they got more than their share of attention from the British in this regard. Raiders who were caught were jailed, and prisoners were sent out as laborers on public works projects; among these were the leveling and marking out of running tracks. Thus rustling and running seemed to be connected in an odd kind of symbiosis. 我已经谈到过偷牲畜的问题。在本世纪初,这是肯尼亚西部的普遍问题,殖民政府曾想方设法要解决这个问题。因为卡伦津犯罪人数最多,在这方面他们也得到了英国方面高度关注。牲畜盗窃犯一旦被抓就会被送进监狱,囚犯们会被派去建设公共工程。这些工程包括为跑道做水平度测量和画道线。因此偷家畜和跑步似乎以一种古怪的共生方式被联系起来。 This connection was confirmed in a letter I have from a former colonial officer - now dead - who recalled a campaign he conducted in one part of Kalenjin territory in the 1930s, promoting athletics as a surrogate for cattle raiding with a slogan that translates roughly as, “Show your valor in sports and games, not in war.” 这个联系从我收到的一封已故前殖民官员的信中得到了证实。他在信中回忆了他1930年代在卡伦津某地区推行的以体育活动代替偷家畜行为的运动。当时的口号翻译过来大概就是“在运动中展现你的英勇,而不是在战争中。” So it seemed that the Kalenjin fondness for raiding earned them an extra push from the colonial administration to take up racing instead. But try as I may, I haven’t been able to find any evidence in colonial records that my correspondent’s approach was ever applied throughout Kalenjin country. 所以,卡伦津人钟爱的偷家畜活动似乎发挥了一种助推作用,促使殖民当局推进长跑活动。但是尽管我做出了尝试,我还是没能在殖民纪录里找到任何证据来证明我的通信人提到的方法曾被用于卡伦津全境。 There are lots of references to Kalenjin cattle raiding, some with a detectable note of admiration, but none that mention the promotion of sport as a surrogate. I have looked through some of the literature on sport as a mechanism of social control, and there’s certainly evidence that it was used this way among another Kenyan tribe, the Kikuyu, after the Mau Mau rebellion in the ’50s. 提到卡伦津人偷家畜的地方有很多,有些还是以一种明显可见的钦佩语气,但是那些记录都没有提到把长跑作为替代品推广的做法。我也查阅了一些有关把运动作为社会控制手段的文献,里面有明确的证据表明50年代茅茅叛乱之后,这种方式曾被用于另一个肯尼亚部落——基库尤。 But I have found nothing about the Kalenjin. I have even looked at the encouragement of cricket as a surrogate for ritual warfare among Trobriand Islanders to see if I could in some way argue that this sort of thing was a common policy throughout the Empire. But that argument seemed a little thin. 但是我没找到关于卡伦津的任何此类记录。我甚至查阅了在特罗布里恩群岛中推行板球作为宗教战争替代品的资料,我想试试能否以某种方式来证明这是一项大英帝国通行的政策。但是论据似乎有些单薄。 And in any event, if athletics was encouraged disproportionately among the Kalenjin in the ’30s, the effects of the policy were long delayed: Kalenjin names do not start turning up with any frequency on the rolls of national champions until after World War II, when the tribe began to join the mainstream of rapidly Westernizing Kenya. Still, I am eager to pursue this idea further if anyone here can suggest sources that I may have overlooked on colonial law enforcement or the use of sport as a means of social control. 而且不管怎样,如果30年代确曾在卡伦津地区着力推广,其效果出现的也有些太晚:直到二战后,卡伦津逐渐融入快速西化的肯尼亚主流之后,这个名字才在国家冠军名单上有所体现。尽管如此,如果有人能提供可能被我忽视的有关殖民地法律实施或者是把体育运动当做社会控制手段的信息源,我还是热切地希望能深入研究这个观点。 (编辑:@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——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——

[译文]再论和平野蛮人神话

More on the Myth of the Peaceful Savage
再论和平野蛮人神话

作者: Peter Turchin @ 2015-7-22
译者:yusong ( [email protected] )
校对:Who视之(@Who视之),沈沉(@你在何地-sxy)
来源:Cliodynamica,http://peterturchin.com/blog/2015/07/22/more-on-the-myth-of-the-peaceful-savage/

In the current issue of Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution the anthropologist Sarah Mathew reviews War, Peace, and Human Nature, edited by Douglas Fry. Fry is one of the large group of anthropologists and other social scientists who have been critical of Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature.

在最新一期的《历史动力学:计量历史和文化演进》杂志中,人类学家Sarah Mathew对Douglas Fry主编的《战争、和平与人性》一书做了评论。许多人类学家和社会科学研究者对Steven Pinker那本《人性中善良天使》持批评态度,Fry是其中之一。

Sarah m(more...)

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More on the Myth of the Peaceful Savage 再论和平野蛮人神话 作者: Peter Turchin @ 2015-7-22 译者:yusong ( [email protected] ) 校对:Who视之(@Who视之),沈沉(@你在何地-sxy) 来源:Cliodynamica,http://peterturchin.com/blog/2015/07/22/more-on-the-myth-of-the-peaceful-savage/ In the current issue of Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution the anthropologist Sarah Mathew reviews War, Peace, and Human Nature, edited by Douglas Fry. Fry is one of the large group of anthropologists and other social scientists who have been critical of Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature. 在最新一期的《历史动力学:计量历史和文化演进》杂志中,人类学家Sarah Mathew对Douglas Fry主编的《战争、和平与人性》一书做了评论。许多人类学家和社会科学研究者对Steven Pinker那本《人性中善良天使》持批评态度,Fry是其中之一。 Sarah makes the following important point about War, Peace, and Human Nature: Sarah对《战争、和平与人性》提出了以下重要论点:
Note that the book is not just about warfare, but about conflict in general, which can include a variety of inter-personal conflict, including physical aggression between same-sex individuals, domestic violence, conflict within social relationships, verbal aggression, and alcohol-induced fights. 值得一提的是,这本书不只是关于战争,而是关于广义的冲突,后者包括各种各样的个人间冲突,比如同性个体间的身体攻击、家庭暴力、社会关系中的冲突、言语攻击和醉酒引发的斗殴等。 Some readers may find this problematic. The evolutionary forces that shape warfare differ from the evolutionary forces that shape inter-personal violence because warfare can occur only if the problem of collective action is solved. Thus, the evolution of warfare is tightly linked to the mechanisms underpinning the evolution of cooperation. 一些读者可能会发现这是有问题的。塑造战争的进化力量不同于塑造个体间暴力的进化力量,因为只有在解决了集体行动的问题之后,战争才有可能发生。因此,战争的进化与合作的进化在基础机制上有着十分紧密的联系。 This fact alone accounts for the rarity of warfare in most of the animal kingdom despite the prevalence of myriad other forms of conflict. So, for readers interested in the evolution of warfare, the book may seem like a grab bag of too many unrelated phenomena. 单单这个事实便可解释为何在动物世界战争如此罕见,尽管其它各式各样的冲突十分常见。所以,那些对战争的进化感兴趣的读者,可能会觉得这本书像是太多无关现象的杂糅之物。
There is a reason why many authors of the book conflate warfare and violence. To see this, I recommend taking a look at a recent article by Azar Gat, Proving Communal Warfare among Hunter-Gatherers: The Quasi-Rousseauan Error. 这本书中的许多作者把战争和暴力并在一起讨论,这么做是有理由的,对此,我建议参考Azar Gat最近发表的一篇文章:“对狩猎采集者之间群体战争的证明:准卢梭式缪见” The target of Gat’s critique is “Rousseauism,” the idea that humans were basically nonviolent before the transition to agriculture and the rise of complex societies—civilization. At the peak of the Rousseauism in the 1960s, anthropologists celebrated Kalahari Bushmen as “harmless people” and wrote books about the Inuits of polar Canada with titles like “Never in Anger.” 【插图1,图片来源:Australian Art Auction Records网站,http://www.artrecord.com/index.cfm/artist/11893-mcrae-tommy/medium/2-works-on-paper/?page=2】 Gat批评的是卢梭主义。卢梭主义认为:在转向农业之前,在复杂社会即文明诞生之前,人类总体上是非暴力的。在卢梭主义影响力达到顶峰的1960年代,人类学家们欣喜地把卡拉哈里沙漠布希曼人(Kalahari Bushmen)称为“无的民族”,并在描写加拿大极地因纽特人的书中使用了“从不发怒”之类的标题。 These descriptions of peaceful hunter-gatherer groups were revealed by subsequent research to be complete fantasies. The seminal publication that turned the tide against Rousseauism in modern anthropology was the 1996 book by Lawrence Keeley, War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage. 然而,后续的研究指出,这些关于和平的狩猎采集群体的描述纯属想象。在现代人类学中,逆转卢梭主义潮流的开创性文献是1996年Lawrence Keeley的著作《文明之前的战争:和平野蛮人的神话》。 【插图2,图片来源:维基百科https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Showing_method_of_attack_with_boomerang_-_NMA-15147.jpg】 Meanwhile, another strand developed in the anthropological study of warfare. These researchers did not deny that small-scale societies studied by anthropologists had very high levels of homicide due to warfare, but argued that it was due to the contact of these previously peaceful societies with the intrusive states. 同时,关于战争的人类学研究中兴起了另一个学派。这些学者并不否认,人类学家研究过的小规模社会有着非常多的战争杀害,但他们争辩说,这是因为这些本来爱好和平的社会接触了具有侵略性的国家。 According to such anthropologists as Brian Ferguson, expanding states, both modern European colonial powers and ancient empires, create “tribal zones” on their frontiers, in which warfare is frequent and intense. 根据Brian Ferguson等人类学家的观点,正在扩张的国家,包括现代欧洲殖民势力和古代帝国,都在它们的扩张前沿创造了“部落地带”,在这些地带,战争显得尤其频繁和剧烈。 Professional anthropologists who, of course, come from civilized state-level societies study the tribal zone and are fooled to believe that all small-scale societies, even those before exposure to the corrupting influence of the states, are very violent. 他们认为,职业人类学家(当然都来自已经建立国家的文明社会)在研究这个部落地带时被愚弄了,以至于相信所有小规模社会,包括那些受国家腐蚀影响之前的,都非常暴力。 Empirical evidence supports the idea that the arrival of centralized states in a region increases the intensity of warfare. But that doesn’t mean that before such intrusion small-scale societies were peaceful. 经验证据确实支持集权国家的到来会增加一个区域战争强度的观点,但这并不意味着,在这种入侵之前,小规模社会就是和平的。 Gat reviews several lines of evidence, including archaeological, but probably the most convincing is his extended review of what we know about the pre-contact Australia. Gat回顾了几组不同证据,包括考古学上的,但其中最具说服力的,可能是他就我们所了解的澳大利亚接触现代文明之前的情况所做的长篇讨论。 Australia was an entire continent inhabited by hunter-gatherers, with no agriculturalists, pastoralists, or states. The first non-foraging society that arrived in Australia was the British, who established the penal colony at the Botany Bay in 1788, and for a while Australia was a dumping ground for the undesirables from the British Isles. It was not until the 1820s when the free settlers started to arrive, and massive immigration began during the Gold rush era, starting in 1851. 整个澳洲大陆原先由狩猎采集者居住,没有农民、牧人,也没有国家。到达澳大利亚的第一个非狩猎群体是英国人,他们在1788年把鲍特尼湾建成一个犯人流放地,澳大利亚一度曾是容纳不列颠群岛不良分子的垃圾场。直到1820年代,才有第一批自由定居者到达,大批移民则始于1851年后兴起的淘金热时代。 【插图3,图片来源:Gat 2015文章】 Much before that, in 1803, the 23-year old Englishman William Buckley escaped from a penalty settlement and lived with an Aboriginal tribe for 32 years. His account gives us an invaluable glimpse into the life of a hunter-gathering society before it was changed by the intruding state-level civilization. Buckley was not a trained anthropologist, but that doesn’t disqualify him from reporting on such basic issues as war and peace. 远在这之前的1803年,一个23岁的英国人William Buckley从罪犯流放地逃脱,在一个澳洲土著部落中生活了32年。他的叙述非常珍贵,让我们得以一窥尚未被有国家文明闯入并改变的狩猎采集社会的生活状态。Buckley并非受过专业训练的人类学家,但这并不意味着他没有能力来报告像战争与和平这样的基础事务。 Buckley recounts some dozen battle scenes, as well as many lethal feuds, raids, and ambushes, comprising a central element of the natives’ traditional way of life. He describes their weapons of war in great detail: clubs, spears, “war boomerangs,” throwing sticks, and shields. Buckley叙述了几十起战斗场景,还有致命的争斗、突袭和伏击,这些共同组成了土著传统生活方式的核心要素。他十分详细地描述了他们使用的武器:棍棒,矛,回旋镖,投掷棍,盾牌等。 Tribes typically consisted of 20–60 families each and were egalitarian, without chiefs. There was fighting at all levels: individual, familial, and tribal. Some of the intertribal encounters that Buckley recorded involved large numbers: five different tribes collected for battle; a battle and raid against an intruding enemy tribe, 300 strong; several full-scale intertribal encounters, the last one a raid with many dead; two other encounters, the second against a war party of 60 men. 这些部落通常由20-60个的家庭组成,内部平等,没有首领。争斗存在于各个层次上:个人间的,家庭间的,和部落间的。Buckley记录的一些部落间交战涉及大量人员:五个不同部落聚集在一起战斗;一场针对入侵部落的战斗和突袭有300多人参战;几场部落之间的全面战争,最后一场是次突袭,造成了许多死亡;还有另外两起遭遇战,其中第二起面对的是一支60人队伍。 Ceremonial cannibalism of the vanquished was customary. Buckley reported that the large-scale raid was the deadliest form of violence and often involved indiscriminate massacre: “The contests between the Watouronga, of Geelong, and the Warrorongs, of the Yarra, were fierce and bloody. I have accompanied the former in their attacks on the latter. When coming suddenly upon them in the night, they have destroyed without mercy men, women and children.” (Gat 2015) 针对败者的仪式性食人行为成立一种惯例。Buckley记述说,大规模突袭是最致命的暴力模式,而且其中经常包括无差别屠杀:‘ Geelong地区的Watouronga部落,与Yarra地区的Warrorongs部落之间的战斗激烈而血腥。我随队亲历了前者对后者的袭击。深夜里突然接近敌方居所后,他们无情地进行屠杀,包括男人、女人和小孩。’(引自Gat 2015年文) The Australian evidence is particularly important because it comes from eyewitnesses to the crime, so to speak. Archaeological evidence tells us that violent death was very frequent in prehistoric societies. But it is difficult to distinguish death in war from death resulting from within-group violence. 澳大利亚的这一证据尤其重要,因为它来自亲眼目睹这类罪行的人。考古学证据告诉我们,在史前社会,暴力造成的死亡非常频繁。但是要区分因为战争造成的死亡和群体内部暴力造成的死亡是十分困难的。 This uncertainty allows Douglas Fry to write, “whereas homicide has occurred periodically over the enduring stretches of Pleistocene millennia, warfare is young, that is, arising within the timeframe of the agricultural revolution.” But the Australian evidence decisively demonstrates that war precedes the agricultural revolution. 由于有这种不确定性, Douglas Fry就可以说,“尽管在漫长的旧石器时代,杀戮周期性地发生,但战争却是一种新事物,也就是说,它起源于农业革命那段时间。”但是澳大利亚的证据确切表明了,战争在农业革命之前就已存在。 ============================== Note added 22.VII.2015: As Scott Atran points out in the comments, the last sentence is too strong. But read the article by Azar Gat, which brings together numerous lines of evidence, making the case for war before civilization very convincing to me. 2015年7月22日注: 正如 Scott Atran在评论里指出的,最后一句显得过于肯定了。但是在读过Azar Gat这篇搜罗了大量证据的文章之后,战争诞生于文明之前的结论在我看来已经非常有说服力了。 (编辑:辉格@whigzhou) *注:本译文未经原作者授权,本站对原文不持有也不主张任何权利,如果你恰好对原文拥有权益并希望我们移除相关内容,请私信联系,我们会立即作出响应。

——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——

旧石器与肉食

【2015-08-25】

@whigzhou: 一个基本历史背景:旧石器时代晚期(也叫中石器时代),人类经历了一次认知革命(也叫文化大爆炸),除其他进步之外,狩猎能力大幅提升,很可能与弓箭的发明有关,导致人类种群及地理分布的又一次大扩张,不像第一波走出非洲时紧贴海岸线,这次扩张横扫欧亚大陆腹地,后来又竖刷美洲大陆……

@whigzhou: 这一过程伴随着大批大型哺乳动物灭绝,而此时人类尚无力破坏动物栖息地,这些动物只能是被吃掉的,所以至少在那几万年里,我们祖先(more...)

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【2015-08-25】 @whigzhou: 一个基本历史背景:旧石器时代晚期(也叫中石器时代),人类经历了一次认知革命(也叫文化大爆炸),除其他进步之外,狩猎能力大幅提升,很可能与弓箭的发明有关,导致人类种群及地理分布的又一次大扩张,不像第一波走出非洲时紧贴海岸线,这次扩张横扫欧亚大陆腹地,后来又竖刷美洲大陆…… @whigzhou: 这一过程伴随着大批大型哺乳动物灭绝,而此时人类尚无力破坏动物栖息地,这些动物只能是被吃掉的,所以至少在那几万年里,我们祖先着实吃了很多肉,直到新仙女木到来,吃肉条件恶化,然后一部分族群转向农业,但从农业起源到谷物变成绝对主食,还要过好几千年,而有些族群从未转向谷物…… @从不造谣自干五:美洲的马为啥会被吃掉 @whigzhou: 马最早都是捉来吃的,欧亚也是,马被驯化后的最初几千年里,也是宰了吃的,后来才用来驮物、拉车,再后来才用于骑乘,较普遍的骑乘历史只有三千多年 @whigzhou: 据说早期的马过于矮小,不适合骑乘,而且方便的骑乘还要很多马具,都有待一样样发明出来  
[译文]八千年前,17名女性为1名男性传宗接代

8,000 Years Ago, 17 Women Reproduced for Every One Man
八千年前,17名女性为1名男性传宗接代

作者:Francie Diep @ 2015-03-18
来源:Pacific Standard
译者:Eartha(@王小贰_Eartha)   校对:陆嘉宾(@晚上不买白天买不到)
网址:http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/17-to-1-reproductive-success

【编者按:原谅我不得不写一段长长的按语。本文所报道的研究非常有意思,但报道本身写得很差。这项研究所揭示的其实是这样一个事实:从大约一万年前开始,也就是农业诞生后不久,人类男性中留下后代的比例经历了一次急剧下降,这段下降期为时约四千年,接着又迅速回升。对此,研究者作出的猜测是:在此期间男性的性竞争强度剧增,原因可能是财富和权势积累并集中在少数人手里。所面临的性选择压力。当然,男性之间的性竞争强度历来很高,而且远远高于女性,对比两幅图可以看出,在历史上大部分时间,留下后代的男性数量大概只有女性的1/4,但农业起源后,这一比例突然跌到1/17,这是极不寻常的。】

An analysis of modern DNA uncovers a rough dating scene after the advent of agricult(more...)

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8,000 Years Ago, 17 Women Reproduced for Every One Man 八千年前,17名女性为1名男性传宗接代 作者:Francie Diep @ 2015-03-18 来源:Pacific Standard 译者:Eartha(@王小贰_Eartha)   校对:陆嘉宾(@晚上不买白天买不到) 网址:http://www.psmag.com/nature-and-technology/17-to-1-reproductive-success 【编者按:原谅我不得不写一段长长的按语。本文所报道的研究非常有意思,但报道本身写得很差。这项研究所揭示的其实是这样一个事实:从大约一万年前开始,也就是农业诞生后不久,人类男性中留下后代的比例经历了一次急剧下降,这段下降期为时约四千年,接着又迅速回升。对此,研究者作出的猜测是:在此期间男性的性竞争强度剧增,原因可能是财富和权势积累并集中在少数人手里。所面临的性选择压力。当然,男性之间的性竞争强度历来很高,而且远远高于女性,对比两幅图可以看出,在历史上大部分时间,留下后代的男性数量大概只有女性的1/4,但农业起源后,这一比例突然跌到1/17,这是极不寻常的。】 An analysis of modern DNA uncovers a rough dating scene after the advent of agriculture. 一项对现代DNA的分析揭示了农业出现以后人类两性关系的大致图景。 Threshing wheat in ancient Egypt. 古埃及的打麦场面(Photo: Carlos E. Solivérez/Wikimedia Commons) Once upon a time, 4,000 to 8,000 years after humanity invented agriculture, something very strange happened to human reproduction. Across the globe, for every 17 women who were reproducing, passing on genes that are still around today—only one man did the same. 很久以前,在农业诞生之后4000到8000年间,人类繁衍活动中发生了一些非常奇怪的事情。全世界每17名女性进行生育繁衍、从而得以将其基因留传至今的同时,却仅1名男性有这样的机会。 "It wasn't like there was a mass death of males. They were there, so what were they doing?" asks Melissa Wilson Sayres, a computational biologist at Arizona State University, and a member of a group of scientists who uncovered this moment in prehistory by analyzing modern genes. “看来并不像是男性经历了大规模死亡,他们都安然地活着。可既然如此,他们到底怎么啦?”Melissa Wilson Sayres问道,她来自亚利桑那州立大学的一位计算生物学家,包括她在内的一群科学家,正试图通过分析现代基因来解密这一史前现象。 Another member of the research team, a biological anthropologist, hypothesizes that somehow, only a few men accumulated lots of wealth and power, leaving nothing for others. These men could then pass their wealth on to their sons, perpetuating this pattern of elitist reproductive success. 该研究团队的另一名成员,一位生物人类学家,提出了这样一个假设:只有少数男性能够积累大量财富与权势,而其他男性则一无所有。这些有钱有势的男性将他们的财富传给自己的子孙,以保持世世代代精英繁衍的模式。 Then, as more thousands of years passed, the numbers of men reproducing, compared to women, rose again. "Maybe more and more people started being successful," Wilson Sayres says. In more recent history, as a global average, about four or five women reproduced for every one man. 如此过了几千年之后,有繁殖机会的男性的比例(相对于女性)再次升高。“也许是成功男士越来越多了。”Wilson Sayres说。在较晚近的历史时期,全球范围内平均4到5名女性为1名男性传宗接代。 These two graphs show the number of men (left) and women (right) who reproduced throughout human history. (Chart: Monika Karmin et al./Genome Research) 这两幅图展示了人类历史上进行了生育的男性数量(左)与女性数量(右) Physically driven natural selection shaped many human traits.Ethnic Africans and Europeans had to evolve to digest milk, for example, while most ethnic Tibetans have adaptations to deal with the lower oxygen levels at high altitudes. But if Wilson Sayres' team's hypothesis is correct, it would be one of the first instances that scientists have found of culture affecting human evolution. 针对生理方面的自然选择塑造了人类的种种特性。例如(民族意义上的)非洲人和欧洲人进化得能够消化牛奶,而多数西藏人则拥有了对付高海拔地区稀薄氧气的适应器。可是假如Wilson Sayres团队提出的假说是正确的,这将是科学家找到的第一批人类文化影响自身进化的例证之一。 The team uncovered this dip-and-rise in the male-to-female reproductive ratio by looking at DNA from more than 450 volunteers from seven world regions. Geneticists analyzed two parts of the DNA, Y-chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA. These don't make up a large portion of a person's genetics, but they're special because people inherit Y-chromosome DNA exclusively from their male ancestors and mitochondrial DNA exclusively from their female ancestors. 研究团队观察分析了来自全球7个地区450多名志愿者的DNA后,发现男女生育比例的这一大起大落。遗传学家分析了DNA的两个部分——Y染色体DNA和线粒体DNA。它们只占个体遗传物质的一小部分,但其特殊之处在于,Y染色体DNA只能继承自父系祖先,而线粒体DNA只能继承自母系祖先。 By analyzing diversity in these parts, scientists are able to deduce the numbers of female and male ancestors a population has. It's always more female. 通过分析不同个体间Y染色体DNA和线粒体DNA的多样化程度,科学家得以此推测一个种群中男性祖先和女性祖先的数量。女性祖先总是多于男性祖先。 So much for what our DNA can tell us. This study, published last week in the journal Genome Research, can't directly account for why the dip occurred. Instead, the team members tried to think through other explanations. "Like was there some sort of weird virus that only affected males across the whole globe, 8,000 years ago?" Wilson Sayres asks—a hypothesis the team found unlikely. 我们的DNA能告诉我们的就这么多了。上周在Genome Research期刊上发表的这项研究,并不能直截了当的解释上述大起大落的原因。研究团队也在努力寻找其他可能的解释。“比如说8000年前全球爆发了一种只感染男性的奇怪病毒?”Wilson Sayres说道——但这个假设大家都觉得不太可能。 To further test the wealth-and-power idea, the researchers plan to look for other genetic markers that would indicate that something cultural, not physical, kept those early male farmers from reproducing. Team members could also collaborate with anthropologists and archaeologists, to see if they have any clues. 为了进一步验证“财富与权势”假说,研究者们计划寻找适当的遗传标记,能够揭示某些妨碍早期男性农耕者生育繁衍的文化而非生理因素。他们也希望与人类学家和考古学家开展合作,看看他们能否提供什么线索。 Nature is a harsh taskmaster, but so, it seems, is human culture. Although the popular notion is that farming and settlement cushioned people against "survival of the fittest," this study shows that's not true. Something cultural happened 8,000 years ago that's marked us even today. 大自然是个严酷的工头,但现在看来,人类文化似乎也是。尽管流行观点认为,农耕与定居已将人类从“最适者生存”的法则中解放,但这项研究却告诉我们真相并非如此,8000年前的某些文化条件留在我们身上的印迹至今仍在。  
农业与性竞争强度

【2015-08-03】

@海德沙龙 人类男性间的性竞争强度历来很高,而且远远高于女性,在历史上大部分时间,留下后代的男性数量大概只有女性的1/4-1/3,不过这份最新研究显示,农业起源之后不久,男性间的性竞争强度突然急剧提高,背后原因引人深思……

@侯杨方: 根据明朝徽州的户口册,我算出临终时,只有三分之一成年男子有男性后代。

@whigzhou: 哇~

@大音希声声声:貌似黑非洲没有经历过长时期的农业文明,是否他们的基因就还比较多样性…所以…接下去就有点政(more...)

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【2015-08-03】 @海德沙龙 人类男性间的性竞争强度历来很高,而且远远高于女性,在历史上大部分时间,留下后代的男性数量大概只有女性的1/4-1/3,不过这份最新研究显示,农业起源之后不久,男性间的性竞争强度突然急剧提高,背后原因引人深思…… @侯杨方: 根据明朝徽州的户口册,我算出临终时,只有三分之一成年男子有男性后代。 @whigzhou: 哇~ @大音希声声声:貌似黑非洲没有经历过长时期的农业文明,是否他们的基因就还比较多样性…所以…接下去就有点政治不正确了…… @whigzhou: 下撒哈拉非洲的农业历史并不短,班图语系各族有很长农耕史,尼罗-撒哈拉语系各族则有很长畜牧史,后者甚至已独立发展出了乳糖耐受 @whigzhou: 非洲的基因多样性最高,是因为她是智人的发源地,发源地多样性最高,这是进化的普遍现象,包括文化进化也是,比如波利尼西亚语在其发源地台湾的多样性,比台湾以外的全部波利尼西亚语加起来还高 @whigzhou: 班图大扩张就是农业民族从西非向东向南扩散的过程,和东亚类似,尼罗语牧民也在不断向南侵袭,但不同的是,非洲的热带雨林(及其孳生的病原体)构成了此类大规模扩张/替代的巨大屏障,所以欧亚大陆那种规模和频率的大清洗就较少发生,这大概也为非洲保留了更多多样性  
女字旁与母系

周末在大象公会吃烤肉时,@段宇宏 段总提到对我否定母系阶段论的文章的一种质疑:

华夏上古八姓(姜、姬、姚、嬴、姒、妘、妫、妊)都是女字旁的,这难道不是远古存在母系社会的证据吗?

当时我用一个笼统的理由搪塞了过去,事后想起来,感觉不满意,昨晚又使劲想了下这问题。

在重新考虑了有关古代姓氏的如下几个要点之后——

1)代表血缘群体;
2)代表血缘群体的地方分支;
3)周代实行“同姓不婚”的族外婚制;
4)组成周代个人称谓的几个成份:姓、氏、行(即排行)、名、字;完整称谓包括所有这些成分,但日常称谓只包括部分成份;
5)周代男性日常称谓一般是氏+名,或(成年后)氏+字,其中不包括姓;
6)周代女性日常称谓一般是氏+姓(比如虞姬夷姜戴妫敬姒葛嬴偪姞),或行+姓(比如 标签: | |

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周末在大象公会吃烤肉时,@段宇宏 段总提到对我否定母系阶段论的文章的一种质疑:

华夏{{上古八姓}}(姜、姬、姚、嬴、姒、妘、妫、妊)都是女字旁的,这难道不是远古存在母系社会的证据吗?

当时我用一个笼统的理由搪塞了过去,事后想起来,感觉不满意,昨晚又使劲想了下这问题。 在重新考虑了有关古代姓氏的如下几个要点之后——

1){{姓}}代表血缘群体; 2){{氏}}代表血缘群体的地方分支; 3)周代实行“{{同姓不婚}}”的族外婚制; 4)组成周代个人称谓的几个成份:姓、氏、行(即排行)、名、字;完整称谓包括所有这些成分,但日常称谓只包括部分成份; 5)周代男性日常称谓一般是氏+名,或(成年后)氏+字,其中不包括姓; 6)周代女性日常称谓一般是氏+姓(比如{{虞姬}},{{夷姜}},{{戴妫}},{{敬姒}},{{葛嬴}},{{偪姞}}),或行+姓(比如{{孟姜}},{{孟姬}}),其中必定包括姓;

突然发现了令我满意的答案: 用来表示上古八姓的汉字都有女字旁,不是因为姓代表了母系血缘群体,而是因为周代只有称呼女性时才会提到姓,称呼男性时只用氏不用姓,所以表示姓的汉字只会出现在女性称谓中,于是这些汉字后来就被加上了“女”这个义旁。 需要强调一点:许多汉字的义旁都是后来加上去的,比如“姓”字的女子旁,金文里是没有的,金文里“百姓”写作“百生”。
[大象]猎头,一个霍布斯的诅咒

猎头,一个霍布斯的诅咒
辉格
2014年10月6日

 

【首级的用途】

在战争中割取敌人头颅,是古代社会非常普遍的做法;这么做的动机有很多,在命运叵测的古代战场上,信心和勇气等心理状态往往是决定胜负的重要因素,一颗拎在手里或悬在腰间的血淋淋头颅,可以产生巨大的心理震撼。

对于有组织成规模的军队,首级常是论功行赏的凭证,而对于职业武士,或者人人都是战士的部落社会,首级更多被用作炫耀个人武功的战利品,证明自己在战场上亲手杀死过敌人,在一个安全、利益和地位很大程度上依赖个人武力的社会,证明这一点很重要;许多新几内亚部落民将猎得的头颅作为装饰品挂在房间里,就像猎人喜欢把鹿头挂在墙上一样。

不过,这种勇武和胆魄的证据若想长期保存,整颗头颅就太不方便了,于是有了各种简化的办法;欧亚草原民族比如斯基泰人(Scythians)和匈奴人,只保存头盖骨的颅顶半球,沿眉骨切下做成饮器,纪念和实用兼顾,对于非定居民族,这不失为节省携带空间的好方法;头骨饮器后来在藏传佛教密宗那里演变成了宗教法器嘎巴拉碗,被用于灌顶仪式。

北美大平原印第安人则选择割取颅顶的一小块头皮,制作成舞蹈仪杖的缨穗,或装饰战袍和马辔的流苏;相比之下,亚马逊丛林部落似乎更看重头颅的本来面目,因而其保存的战利品在视觉效果上更为具象,他们将所猎首级剔除头骨、留下皮肉,经用草药浸泡、填塞、烟熏之后,珍藏起来,用于宗教和节庆仪式。

展示猎头记录的徽章,也可以符号化的形式存在,只要有战友乐意作为目击证人而作证,以符号代替实物作为证据便是可行的;吕宋山区的伊戈罗特人(Igorots)将猎得头颅集中悬挂在村社公共大屋外的旗杆上,因而个人只能以一种特殊样式的文身作为猎头徽章;他们的邻居伊隆戈人(Ilongots)则用一种红嘴犀鸟头骨制成的耳环承担这一职能。

【当猎头成为风俗】

通常,获取首级并制作成战利品的做法,只是伴随于战争和部族间冲突的副产品,但在某些社会,比如发源于台湾后来广布于东南亚和太平洋的诸多南岛民族(Austronesian)中,一种专以猎取和收集头颅为目的的杀戮行动沿袭成风,乃至发展成著名的猎头(headhunting)习俗,台湾原住民称之为“出草”,几年前此俗曾因台湾电影《赛德克·巴莱》中的表现而广为人知。

在流行猎头俗的民族中,猎取头颅成了对其他群体发动袭击的动机而非结果,收集更多头颅本身被视为一件有价值的事情,成功猎头并取得相应文身、饰物或头衔,成了男孩成长为真正男人和合格战士的前提,甚至是娶妻成家之前需要完成的大事之一(尽管未必是必要条件),这就激发了年轻人参与猎头行动的极大热情。

猎头俗无疑加剧了这些民族的群体间冲突,引发和延续着连绵不绝的血仇循环,最糟糕的情况下,猎头心切的年轻人常常拿来访的客人下手,以至破坏群体间联盟关系,而这种关系是地方政治秩序赖以维持的仅有资源,结果,每当新一代青年成长起来,新一轮猎头浪潮兴起,原本就脆弱不堪的秩序便荡然无存,陷入人人自危的状态(more...)

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猎头,一个霍布斯的诅咒 辉格 2014年10月6日   【首级的用途】 在战争中割取敌人头颅,是古代社会非常普遍的做法;这么做的动机有很多,在命运叵测的古代战场上,信心和勇气等心理状态往往是决定胜负的重要因素,一颗拎在手里或悬在腰间的血淋淋头颅,可以产生巨大的心理震撼。 对于有组织成规模的军队,首级常是论功行赏的凭证,而对于职业武士,或者人人都是战士的部落社会,首级更多被用作炫耀个人武功的战利品,证明自己在战场上亲手杀死过敌人,在一个安全、利益和地位很大程度上依赖个人武力的社会,证明这一点很重要;许多新几内亚部落民将猎得的头颅作为装饰品挂在房间里,就像猎人喜欢把鹿头挂在墙上一样。 不过,这种勇武和胆魄的证据若想长期保存,整颗头颅就太不方便了,于是有了各种简化的办法;欧亚草原民族比如斯基泰人([[Scythians]])和匈奴人,只保存头盖骨的颅顶半球,沿眉骨切下做成饮器,纪念和实用兼顾,对于非定居民族,这不失为节省携带空间的好方法;头骨饮器后来在藏传佛教密宗那里演变成了宗教法器嘎巴拉碗,被用于灌顶仪式。 北美大平原印第安人则选择割取颅顶的一小块头皮,制作成舞蹈仪杖的缨穗,或装饰战袍和马辔的流苏;相比之下,亚马逊丛林部落似乎更看重头颅的本来面目,因而其保存的战利品在视觉效果上更为具象,他们将所猎首级剔除头骨、留下皮肉,经用草药浸泡、填塞、烟熏之后,珍藏起来,用于宗教和节庆仪式。 展示猎头记录的徽章,也可以符号化的形式存在,只要有战友乐意作为目击证人而作证,以符号代替实物作为证据便是可行的;吕宋山区的伊戈罗特人([[Igorots]])将猎得头颅集中悬挂在村社公共大屋外的旗杆上,因而个人只能以一种特殊样式的文身作为猎头徽章;他们的邻居伊隆戈人([[Ilongots]])则用一种红嘴犀鸟头骨制成的耳环承担这一职能。 【当猎头成为风俗】 通常,获取首级并制作成战利品的做法,只是伴随于战争和部族间冲突的副产品,但在某些社会,比如发源于台湾后来广布于东南亚和太平洋的诸多南岛民族([[Austronesian]])中,一种专以猎取和收集头颅为目的的杀戮行动沿袭成风,乃至发展成著名的猎头([[headhunting]])习俗,台湾原住民称之为“出草”,几年前此俗曾因台湾电影《赛德克·巴莱》中的表现而广为人知。 在流行猎头俗的民族中,猎取头颅成了对其他群体发动袭击的动机而非结果,收集更多头颅本身被视为一件有价值的事情,成功猎头并取得相应文身、饰物或头衔,成了男孩成长为真正男人和合格战士的前提,甚至是娶妻成家之前需要完成的大事之一(尽管未必是必要条件),这就激发了年轻人参与猎头行动的极大热情。 猎头俗无疑加剧了这些民族的群体间冲突,引发和延续着连绵不绝的血仇循环,最糟糕的情况下,猎头心切的年轻人常常拿来访的客人下手,以至破坏群体间联盟关系,而这种关系是地方政治秩序赖以维持的仅有资源,结果,每当新一代青年成长起来,新一轮猎头浪潮兴起,原本就脆弱不堪的秩序便荡然无存,陷入人人自危的状态。 如此奇特的习俗何以能够存续?假如我们(像人类学家那样)去问猎头者自己,会得到各种各样的答案,都与某种迷信有关:这样才能让死去祖先的鬼魂安心,不至降祸于子孙;收藏头颅可以控制被杀敌人的灵魂,使其不再成为祸害;从敌人头颅中获取对方鬼魂神秘力量,增强战士的勇气和战斗力;等等。 猎头者或许真的相信这些说法,但这远不是可以让人满意的解释,考察任何习俗时都需要留意的是,切不可把实践者的信念当作习俗存在的理由,否则我们只能得到最肤浅的理解,考虑如下事实即可领会这一点:与猎头有关的迷信五花八门,每个民族都有自己的一套说法,可是这些大异其趣的迷信却引出了如此相似的行为,其背后必定另有原因。 【霍布斯的诅咒】 从政治形态中似乎可以看出些端倪,有关那些盛行猎头俗的社会的民族志描述中,有一个共同点很容易引起我们的注意:它们几乎全都缺乏超出最小血缘群体之上的政治结构,社会组织仅限于村社或游团(band)层次,规模都在邓巴数之下,没有政府,没有习惯法或其他制度化的纠纷解决机制,没有稳固的政治联盟,总之,没有任何可以维持最低和平秩序的制度元素。 这大概是最接近17世纪政治哲学家托马斯·霍布斯([[Thomas Hobbes]])所设想的“自然状态”的局面了,只需一个小小修正:把“所有人对所有人的战争”换成更准确的“所有小群体对所有小群体的战争”;实际上,近二十年多来,越来越多的学者相信,这正是前国家社会的基本形态,尽管程度有所不同。 自从地理大发现以来,随着探险和殖民活动的展开,欧洲传教士和殖民者很早就注意到了前文明社会广泛存在的暴力现象,对猎头和食人习俗尤为震骇,从美洲、大洋洲、非洲、东南亚,类似情景反复出现;1901年,一批传教士在新几内亚南部面积仅47平方公里的小岛戈阿里巴里([[Goaribari]])上,发现了一万多颗被收藏在村庄公共长屋里的头骨。 人类学家拿破仑·沙尼翁([[Napoleon Chagnon]])在亚马逊丛林对亚诺玛米人([[Yanomami]])做了三十多年田野研究,生态学家在贾瑞德·戴蒙德([[Jared Diamond]])在新几内亚和西太平洋从事了数十年鸟类研究,他们都有着与当地土著长期共同生活的经历,有机会对其行为和社会状态作贴近而细致的观察,他们对这些社会连绵不断的暴力冲突得出了同样的观感和评论:暴力和恐惧无处不在,越出村社边界的旅行极度危险。 在1996年出版的《前文明战争》([[War Before Civilization]])一书中,古人类学家劳伦斯·基利([[Lawrence Keeley]])利用广泛的考古记录和人类学材料对上述状况做了系统性考察,得出了同样结论;2011年,心理学家史蒂文·平克([[Steven Pinker]])在《我们的善良天性》([[The Better Angels of Our Nature]])中,提供了更多更广泛的数据再次确认了这一判断:前文明无政府社会近乎于霍布斯的自然状态。 【猎头的功能】 在这样一个充满危险的世界里,猎头俗可以为其实践者带来好处;首先是个人的好处,成功猎头者的名声,以及它所标示的勇气和战斗力,可以吓阻潜在攻击者,降低自己和家人受攻击的机会;同时,这一名声也可以让社区成员相信他是一名优秀战士,因而也就是有价值的战友或亲属,因为他更可能帮助团伙在战斗中取胜,也更可能为亲属提供庇护。 所有这些,都可能为猎头者在群体中赢得敬畏、尊重和社会地位,最重要的是,会让他成为更受欢迎的夫婿,不仅因为他更有能力保护妻儿,还因为,对于女方家族,获得这样一位姻亲将提升家族战斗力和安全感;我们知道,一旦某项特性成为择偶中被重点考虑的条件,其优势就会被性选择机制放大和强化,在盛行猎头俗的族群中,猎头经历正是如此。 其次是群体的好处,有两方面,一、猎头俗可以让群体和猎头个体一样建立有关其战斗力、嗜血残忍和勇猛好战的声誉,从而吓阻邻近群体的攻击;二、通过持续的猎头行动,可以削弱、驱逐、乃至消灭邻近群体,从而为自身的繁衍壮大争得资源和空间,那些被人类学家观察到的猎头群体,其有幸存在于世,都要感谢他们的历代祖先在这场激烈而严酷的竞争中免遭败绩。 这一点上,人类和黑猩猩很像,灵长类学家对黑猩猩的战争行为已有了许多了解,简·古道尔([[Jane Goodall]])和西田利贞([[Nishida Toshisada]])在各自研究中都发现,黑猩猩群体的雄性成员会组成巡逻队守卫领地,并在巡逻过程中伺机猎杀相邻黑猩猩群体中的落单个体或数量占下风的小团伙,那些在战争中命运不济的群体,常在几十年内被逐渐消灭,或者在一次成功偷袭中遭毁灭性打击。 这与人类学家在亚马逊丛林、新几内亚高地、吕宋山区、南部非洲的前文明社会中见到的情形极为相似;此类战争多以小股团伙路边伏击或凌晨偷袭的方式进行,通常单次伤亡不大,袭击者往往满足于完成第一轮打击、杀死一两个人后立即撤退(在少数特别成功的偷袭中,也会发生灭门屠杀),但由于战争是持续不断的,所以造成的总死亡率非常高,是大约1/4到1/2成年男性的死亡原因。 【为何是南岛】 尽管前文明战争极为普遍,程度却颇有不同,有些社会虽没有现代意义上的政府或司法系统,但已经有了某些政治组织、纠纷解决机制和习惯法,这些制度元素发育状况参差不齐,但多多少少能带来一些秩序,那么,为何群体间冲突和秩序缺乏在南岛表现得尤为突出?从台湾、菲律宾、印尼,到新几内亚和西太平洋,以猎头为直接目标的猎头俗也主要流行于南岛? 答案或许要从地理特征上找,南岛地处欧亚、菲律宾、太平洋、澳洲四大板块交汇处,被挤压得满是褶皱,它由众多岛屿组成,这些岛要么本身很小,要么被层峦叠嶂分割得非常细碎,在现代交通和通信工具出现之前,这种地区在政治上必定是高度碎片化的,技术上的局限,使得它既难以通过征服而产生超越村社以上的大型政治实体,也难以被一个中央权力所统治。 历史上,从部落、酋邦到国家,政治实体最初都是通过武力征服而创建的,征服的速度必须足够快,才能确保共同体内在语言、文化、习俗上保持足够的同质化,以维系认同,也才能确保控制各下级单元的统治者都是亲缘足够近的亲属,以维系统治层的紧密合作。 然而,在南岛的地理条件下,快速征服是做不到的,在那里,群体间的排挤、消灭、替代只能以小口蚕食的方式进行,消灭相邻群体的过程通常要持续几代人,这样,即便最成功的氏族,当它扩张到足以构成一个部落时,已经过了十几代,各分支首领的亲缘已很远,文化不再同质,甚至语言都难以相通,假如这过程中曾经几度交恶,更难再形成认同或结成联盟。 况且,即便有幸建立了政治共同体,或者被某个外来政权所征服,像南岛这样的褶皱地区也很难长期维持政治统一或外部控制,交通和通信上的障碍,使得有效统治在技术上不可行,短暂统一很快又会退回四分五裂状态。 碎片化从语言分布上也可看出,语言学家将语言区分为两种:泛布区(spread zones)和马赛克区(mosaic zones),前者是单一语种或内部差别细微的语系分布于一个大区域,比如印欧语、汉语、突厥语、班图语,后者则是在一个小区域中呈细密网格状分布着大量相互差异巨大的语言,最典型的是新几内亚,该岛拥有占全球总数1/5的1200种语言。 这两种格局,实际上对应了族群之间排挤、征服和替代过程的两种模式,从南岛、横断山脉、喜马拉雅和兴都库什,到高加索、巴尔干和阿尔卑斯,地理上的褶皱区域,在语言分布上常表现为马赛克,在政治和社会形态上则表现为碎片化。 南岛另一个影响冲突强度的因素是人口密度,热带食物来源原本就较为丰盛,而且南岛民族大多已学会了农业,以园艺、游耕或精耕方式种植西米、番薯、芋头和水稻,饲养鸡猪,吕宋山区甚至发展出了高度精细的水稻梯田和灌溉系统。 这样,一方面农业支撑了比狩猎采集高出一到两个数量级的人口密度,从而大幅缩短了敌对群体间的距离,因而在同等技术条件下强化了冲突,而同时,南岛却并未像温带地区那样随农业和定居而产生国家,或其他任何赖以维持和平的政治秩序和制度安排,因而始终无法摆脱霍布斯的诅咒;在吕宋,猎头活动直到1972年才在菲律宾政府高压之下得以平息。  
真的有过母系社会阶段吗?

真的有过母系社会阶段吗?
辉格
2014年9月8日

 

【母系神话】

基于意识形态而编写的官方历史教科书,曾在几代人中造成了对历史的大规模错误认知,比如许多人相信,历史上曾经有过一个普遍以奴隶制为社会经济基础的时代,甚而认为奴隶制是社会制度演变的必经阶段,许多人也相信,在开始近代化之前的两千多年里,中国始终是个封建社会。

这些认识,由于和已知历史事实背谬的实在太远,在学界已没多少影响,如今虽还在流传,但也只是作为一种标签,用来展示其知识来源被局限于官方教科书而已;然而还有一个谬误,即便在学界,即便在知识来源没那么狭隘的人群中,仍有相当影响,那就是“母系阶段论”,即认为早期人类社会普遍采用从妻居(matrilocal residence)模式,按母系组成血缘群体。

事实上民族志调查显示,多数(3/4以上)传统社会采用父系制(即实行从夫居(patrilocal residence),并按父系组成血缘群体),而且并不存在社会结构越简单原始,越可能采用母系制的倾向,比如澳洲和新几内亚土著的社会形态相当原始,且与主要文明长期隔绝,但也都采用父系制;没有证据表明,人类早期曾有过一个普遍采用母系制的阶段。

相反,压倒性的证据显示,在直到现代之前的整个人类历史上,父系制始终是主流和常态,母系制只是特殊条件下的例外,父系制的历史甚至可以追溯到人类与黑猩猩的共同祖先,因为黑猩猩、倭黑猩猩、乃至亲缘更远的大猩猩,都是从夫居的;除了民族志材料,对晚期南猿和尼安德特人的化石同位素分析也显示,这两个社会很可能都是从夫居的。

【神话的由来】

那么,这个母系神话是怎么来的,为何它比其他神话有着更持久的生命力?答案看来要从政治和意识形态上去找。

最初提出母系阶段论的是瑞士学者约翰·巴霍芬(Johann Bachofen),在1861年出版的一本书中,他根据从希腊神话和古代传说中搜罗出的一些线索,比如亚马逊女战士和普遍存在的女性生殖崇拜,认为早期社会不仅是母系的,还是母权的;他还不甘落伍的配合维多利亚时代流行的社会进步观,提出了一种阶梯式社会进化理论,按女权男权的此消彼长,将社会史划分成了四个阶段。

巴霍芬的著作适时启发了恰好正在研究亲属关系的美国人类学家路易斯·摩根(Lewis Morgan),由于摩根接触过的易洛魁社会恰好是母系制的,所以很快被巴氏的理论所吸引,并与他建立了通信关系;此后在1877年出版的《古代社会》里,摩根很大程度上采纳了巴氏的观点,将他所了解的易洛魁母系制一般化为早期社会普遍经历的“母系氏族阶段”。

和巴霍芬相比,摩根是更严肃的人类学家,他做过一些田野调查(但不是对易洛魁),所用材料也更具实证价值,但他的系统性信息来源主要是语言学材料,从中推断婚姻与亲属制度的可信度并不高,最大的问题是,和那个时代喜欢构造宏大体系的博学家一样,他的阶梯式社会进化理论同样是以想当然的猜测为主。

摩根之所以认为存在一个母系阶段,是基于这样一种轻率推导:早期人类是乱交的,没有固定配偶关系,因而不知其父只知其母,也难以防止近亲交配,所以最初的血缘群体(即氏族或胞族)只能按母系组成,所以早期社会必定基于母系制的。

这里存在两个误解:首先,防止一级近亲(兄妹、父女和母子)交配无须以固定配偶为前提,只须实行外婚制(exogamy)和从夫(或从妻)居即可,也就是遵循这样三条原则:不和与自己出生于同一群体的异性交配,性成熟后离开出生群体并加入其他群体,不与性伙伴的子女交配;许多动物正是通过这种方式避免近亲交配的。

第二个误解是:组成父系氏族无须以父子关系可辨认为前提,只须实行外婚制和从夫居、并且兄弟关系可辨认即可;比如从若干同母兄弟开始,每一代所有女儿都离开,并接纳来自其他群体的女性,便可确保群体男性成员始终拥有共同的父系祖先;实际上,黑猩猩正是通过这样的安排组成了父系氏族,尽管它们没有固定配偶,也不知有父。

巴霍芬和摩根所犯的另一个错误,是制造了母系制和母权制( 标签: | | | | |

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真的有过母系社会阶段吗? 辉格 2014年9月8日   【母系神话】 基于意识形态而编写的官方历史教科书,曾在几代人中造成了对历史的大规模错误认知,比如许多人相信,历史上曾经有过一个普遍以奴隶制为社会经济基础的时代,甚而认为奴隶制是社会制度演变的必经阶段,许多人也相信,在开始近代化之前的两千多年里,中国始终是个封建社会。 这些认识,由于和已知历史事实背谬的实在太远,在学界已没多少影响,如今虽还在流传,但也只是作为一种标签,用来展示其知识来源被局限于官方教科书而已;然而还有一个谬误,即便在学界,即便在知识来源没那么狭隘的人群中,仍有相当影响,那就是“母系阶段论”,即认为早期人类社会普遍采用从妻居([[matrilocal residence]])模式,按母系组成血缘群体。 事实上民族志调查显示,多数(3/4以上)传统社会采用父系制(即实行从夫居([[patrilocal residence]]),并按父系组成血缘群体),而且并不存在社会结构越简单原始,越可能采用母系制的倾向,比如澳洲和新几内亚土著的社会形态相当原始,且与主要文明长期隔绝,但也都采用父系制;没有证据表明,人类早期曾有过一个普遍采用母系制的阶段。 相反,压倒性的证据显示,在直到现代之前的整个人类历史上,父系制始终是主流和常态,母系制只是特殊条件下的例外,父系制的历史甚至可以追溯到人类与黑猩猩的共同祖先,因为黑猩猩、倭黑猩猩、乃至亲缘更远的大猩猩,都是从夫居的;除了民族志材料,对晚期南猿和尼安德特人的化石同位素分析也显示,这两个社会很可能都是从夫居的。 【神话的由来】 那么,这个母系神话是怎么来的,为何它比其他神话有着更持久的生命力?答案看来要从政治和意识形态上去找。 最初提出母系阶段论的是瑞士学者约翰·巴霍芬([[Johann Bachofen]]),在1861年出版的一本书中,他根据从希腊神话和古代传说中搜罗出的一些线索,比如亚马逊女战士和普遍存在的女性生殖崇拜,认为早期社会不仅是母系的,还是母权的;他还不甘落伍的配合维多利亚时代流行的社会进步观,提出了一种阶梯式社会进化理论,按女权男权的此消彼长,将社会史划分成了四个阶段。 巴霍芬的著作适时启发了恰好正在研究亲属关系的美国人类学家路易斯·摩根([[Lewis Morgan]]),由于摩根接触过的易洛魁社会恰好是母系制的,所以很快被巴氏的理论所吸引,并与他建立了通信关系;此后在1877年出版的《古代社会》里,摩根很大程度上采纳了巴氏的观点,将他所了解的易洛魁母系制一般化为早期社会普遍经历的“母系氏族阶段”。 和巴霍芬相比,摩根是更严肃的人类学家,他做过一些田野调查(但不是对易洛魁),所用材料也更具实证价值,但他的系统性信息来源主要是语言学材料,从中推断婚姻与亲属制度的可信度并不高,最大的问题是,和那个时代喜欢构造宏大体系的博学家一样,他的阶梯式社会进化理论同样是以想当然的猜测为主。 摩根之所以认为存在一个母系阶段,是基于这样一种轻率推导:早期人类是乱交的,没有固定配偶关系,因而不知其父只知其母,也难以防止近亲交配,所以最初的血缘群体(即氏族或胞族)只能按母系组成,所以早期社会必定基于母系制的。 这里存在两个误解:首先,防止一级近亲(兄妹、父女和母子)交配无须以固定配偶为前提,只须实行外婚制([[exogamy]])和从夫(或从妻)居即可,也就是遵循这样三条原则:不和与自己出生于同一群体的异性交配,性成熟后离开出生群体并加入其他群体,不与性伙伴的子女交配;许多动物正是通过这种方式避免近亲交配的。 第二个误解是:组成父系氏族无须以父子关系可辨认为前提,只须实行外婚制和从夫居、并且兄弟关系可辨认即可;比如从若干同母兄弟开始,每一代所有女儿都离开,并接纳来自其他群体的女性,便可确保群体男性成员始终拥有共同的父系祖先;实际上,黑猩猩正是通过这样的安排组成了父系氏族,尽管它们没有固定配偶,也不知有父。 巴霍芬和摩根所犯的另一个错误,是制造了母系制和母权制([[matriarchy]])的混淆,实际上两者没有他们所认为的固定联系或因果关系,大多数母系社会要么是平等主义的,要么是男权占优的,由男性充当酋长、族长或头人的角色,迄今没有任何社会被人类学家普遍承认是实行母权制的,尽管曾有个别社会被少数人类学家认定为母权社会。 【当神话傍上大款】 尽管有着这样根本性的理论缺陷,也得不到经验证据支持,摩根的理论却在社会科学界获得了极大影响,《古代社会》很长时间内被奉为婚姻和亲属关系领域的经典著作;这一地位的确立要归功于恩格斯,在整理马克思遗物时,恩格斯发现马克思就该书写了许多笔记,顿时如获至宝,迅速将自己的唯物史观揉进其中,于次年出版了《家庭、私有制和国家的起源》。 马恩之所以亲睐摩根理论,是因为后者很适合为他们空洞干枯的历史唯物主义添加血肉;历史唯物主义认为,人类社会注定会从原始状态开始,在阶级斗争推动下,经历一系列特定阶段,最终进入共产主义;摩根理论主要被用于描绘上述过程的第一步。 大意是:血亲关系和阶级关系是组织社会的两种相互排斥的力量,在原始状态,只有血缘而没有阶级,又因父子关系无从识别,所以原始社会必然是母系的,后来,男性为获得支配地位,合谋对女性加以控制,并建立父系家庭和父权,从而破坏了血缘氏族组织,同时家庭的出现导致了私有财产权建立,而为了维护家庭、父权和财产权,又建立了国家机器,最终,原本由血缘关系维持的社会,变成了一些阶级统治其他阶级的社会。 恩格斯的著作后来成了各共产主义国家的社会学红宝书,在西方左翼阵营中也颇有影响,而人类学和社会学界恰好又是左翼思想长期占主导地位的;和其他马列红宝书中空泛抽象的理论和宣传相比,这本书的内容更具实证色彩,看起来更有干货,因而其对观念的影响也更为深远,这一影响即便在马列意识形态失去吸引力之后,仍时常能感觉到。 但实际上,从恩格斯看到马克思笔记到他的书出版,中间只隔了一年多时间,根本做不了什么像样的研究,其中看似经验性的内容,其实都是凭空臆想,比如他认为父系家庭和男权的建立导致了财产权的诞生,但这两者之间的依赖关系既非逻辑上的必要,也没有经验支持,实际上财产权更多是和定居农业联系在一起,无论北美、非洲、还是东南亚的母系社会,只要过定居生活,都有财产权。 除了马列导师,母系神话还傍上了另一个大款——女权运动,许多女权主义者热烈欢迎摩根和恩格斯的理论,特别是1960/70年代的第二波女权浪潮——以著名考古学家马丽加·金芭塔丝([[Marija Gimbutas]])为代表——,复兴了这套原本在学术界已被冷落的理论;女权运动的强大声势和它所取得的政治正确地位,延续着母系神话的寿命。 女权主义者亲睐母系阶段论的理由或许是:假如漫长的前文明时代都是母系社会,那么母系制乃至母权制就可以说是更自然的、更符合人类“本性”的;这种以“更接近原始形态”为由对某种制度或行为模式加以合理化的做法——常包裹在自然、纯真、天性等美妙词汇之下——世人早已耳熟能详,从衣食住行到教育医疗,乃至“高贵野蛮人([[noble savage]])”神话中,都可看到。 但稍稍推敲一下,便不难发现其背后的反文明和反进化逻辑,果若原始的就是好的,何不改回四足行走放弃语言文字回树上生活? 不乏有女权主义者认识到上述合理化努力的反文明性质,也意识到母系神话对女权运动是个不必要的包袱,让她们的信念和主张建立在错误的历史认知之上;在2001年出版的《史前母权神话》([[The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory]])一书中,文化史学家辛西娅·埃勒([[Cynthia Eller]])对母系神话渗透进女权运动的历史做了全面清理,并呼吁女权主义者抛弃这一包袱。 【重新认识父系制】 对有关母系和母权的种种谬见的清除工作所带来的一个额外好处是,可以让我们更好的认识父系制在人类发展史上所扮演的角色;恩格斯尽管炮制了许多谬论,但有一点他说对了,父系关系的发展确曾是推动社会进化的一大动力,可是他弄错了时间,而且错的很远,这一发展,远远早于他所认为的原始社会晚期,而是可以追溯到人类与黑猩猩的共同祖先。 在对黑猩猩的观察中,灵长类学家发现它们在两个关键方面和人类很像:一是战争行为,简·古道尔([[Jane Goodall]])和西田利贞([[Nishida Toshisada]])在各自研究中都发现,黑猩猩群体的雄性成员会组成巡逻队守卫领地,并在巡逻过程中伺机猎杀相邻黑猩猩群体中的落单个体或数量占下风的小团伙。 那些在战争中命运不济的群体,常在几十年内被逐渐消灭,或者在一次成功偷袭中遭毁灭性打击,这与人类学家在亚马逊丛林、新几内亚高地、吕宋山区、南部非洲的部落社会中见到的情形极为相似,实际上,这种由群体内雄性结伙对相邻同类发动经常性战争的行为,在前文明无国家社会中普遍存在,但在整个动物界却是极为罕见的。 第二个相似点是政治,弗兰斯·德瓦尔([[Frans de Waal]])发现,黑猩猩群体内雄性在争夺首领地位、从而获取多数交配机会的过程中,会像人类那样施展马基雅维利式的政治伎俩,合纵连横尔虞我诈见风使舵,比如雄一号用各种甜头诱使雄三号合作阻止雄二号夺位,一旦雄一号显出颓势或二号实力提升,三号便伺机背叛与二号合谋篡位。 当然,由于缺乏语言和武器带给人类的强大交流、控制与组织手段,黑猩猩的战争和政治形态还非常原始简陋,但从整个灵长类乃至动物界看,黑猩猩已经朝着建立复杂社会的方向迈出了关键一步,这一步,恰恰与父系关系的建立同时发生,而父系群体和战争与政治在动物界同样罕见,这强烈暗示着,这一同时性并非巧合。 从亲缘选择([[kin selection]])的角度看,我们也有理由相信父系关系所起的作用,假如黑猩猩群体是母系的,其中成年雄性并非近亲,那他们就很难形成持久的合作关系来集体守卫领地和发动战争,争斗将以个体对个体而不是群体对群体的方式发生,因为一旦某方显现出优势,弱势一方的个体便可轻易转投优势方,这样,以群内合作为前提的群体间对抗便难以形成。 由于性选择导致两性在体型和体能上的显著差异(即所谓“性二态([[sexual dimorphism]])”),群体间对抗只能以雄性为主力,这要求雄性间能够达成合作,而除非得到亲缘关系的强化,这种合作难以持久,对此困难,一个明显的解决方案是建立父系合作群体,而通过采用从夫居模式(即成年雌性离开出生群体,雄性留在群内),黑猩猩找到了这个方案。 【父系引擎的威力】 基于父系亲缘的雄性联盟的建立,对此后人类社会的发展产生了深远影响;特别是当人类跨出了更重要的第二步——结成固定配偶关系、进而建立父系家族——之后,社会结构便朝向日益复杂的方向发展;因为婚姻大幅提高了亲子关系确定性,让父系亲缘变得更明确更精细,从而有可能按亲缘远近建立多层次的父系家族组织。 同时,多层次结构带来了等级分化,后者以多偶制的形式强化了配偶竞争和性选择压力,又因为语言和武器将选择压力从个人身体禀赋转向了地位、财富、权力、组织控制能力等等制度性因素,因而使得性选择成了社会结构进化的一大动力。 上述机制,对照狒狒的情况或许可以看得更清楚,埃及狒狒([[hamadryas baboon]])在许多方面都非常像人,其社会形态甚至比黑猩猩更接近人类,它同样罕见的采用了从夫居和父系制,但比黑猩猩更进一步,它和人类一样建立了多偶制的固定配偶关系,因而也得以按亲缘远近建立了多达四个层次的复杂等级社会,四个层次大致相当于人类的家庭、氏族、游团([[band society|band]])和部落。 多层父系群的建立,使得埃及狒狒的雄性联盟极具战斗力,群体间常因争夺领地和支配地位而发生战争,有时战争场面相当壮观,在一英里开阔的战场上数百头雄性投入战斗;另外,雄性在控制配偶和下级时也表现的非常暴虐,这些情景,都很容易让人联想到人类社会。 埃及狒狒转向父系制,最初可能是为了构建雄性联盟以对抗非洲豹和斑鬣狗等危险捕食者,相比之下,其表亲狮尾狒狒([[gelada]])生活在捕食者难以到达的悬崖绝壁上,处境更安全,因而仍保留着母系制,没有发展出多层次结构,雄性对待配偶更温和,群体间冲突也没有那么剧烈。 近年来越来越多的研究(比如劳伦斯·基利([[Lawrence Keeley]])和史蒂文·平克([[Steven Pinker]]))发现,整个人类史上,前国家社会都充斥着连绵不绝的暴力和战争,在这种环境下,群体的生存和壮大往往严重依赖于其战争能力,而在由血缘纽带维系的前国家社会,战争能力只能由父系男性联盟保障。 由此我们有理由相信,父系制在历史上始终居于主流,母系制只是例外;有些社会或许因为地处孤立隔绝环境(比如沙漠或小岛),冲突强度低,比如母系制的霍皮族([[Hopi]])印第安人,是著名的和平主义者,有些社会则因为选择了特殊生计模式而难以维系父系家族,比如摩梭族男性常年外出经营马帮,甚至无法维持稳定婚姻关系,与此相似的是苏门答腊的米南佳保族([[Minangkabau]]),男性也普遍外出从事商业或手工业。    
[大象]童贞崇拜与掠夺性强奸

(按:本文首发于大象公会,转载须经公会同意。)

童贞崇拜与掠夺性强奸
辉格
2014年5月12日

童贞(virginity)崇拜广泛存在于各大文化中,定居农业社会尤为盛行,时至今日,处女党队伍在某些国家依然庞大,妇产科医生们时而还会遇到男性咨询者请教如何甄别女友是否为处女,为此有人甚至不惜将女友私处照片上传到健康咨询网站上。

对童贞的要求曾经是男性觅偶策略(mating strategy)的一部分,历史上,由于人类幼儿特别沉重的养育负担,人类后代抚养模式经历了一个从单亲抚养向双亲合作抚养的转变过程,在此过程中男性对家庭与子女的情感与资源投入不断增加,然而在亲代投资问题上,男性面临一个根本障碍:亲子关系的不确定性,而对童贞的强调正是用来克服这一障碍的方法。

新娘的童贞可以让丈夫相信至少头胎孩子是自己的,否则他就需要将新娘闺禁小半年以确认其此前未怀孕,更重要的是,婚前守贞的历史,是判断妻子今后出轨风险的重要信号,所以一旦谈判地位(这一地位随男方在家庭中投入资源的比例增加而提高)允许,男性就会对童贞提出要求。

不过童贞并不容易识别,它意味着在很长一段时间内没有发生过某种事情,要证明这一点非常困难;传统中国社会的流行做法是,将达到性成熟年龄的女孩置于严密监控的隔离制度之下:多数时间关在与外界隔绝的闺房里,通过缠足削弱其行动能力,外出须由女眷陪伴,且活动时间与地点皆有严格限制,还有一整套社交规范限制其与成年异性的接触。

这么做成本相当高,不仅损失了受控女性的生产力,还要耗费监控者(通常由女性长辈或女佣担任)的大量时间,即便如此,其成效就个案而言也是无从验证的,而只能体现在这套系统在家族历史上的长期执行效果(即所谓的“家风( 标签: | |

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(按:本文首发于大象公会,转载须经公会同意。) 童贞崇拜与掠夺性强奸 辉格 2014年5月12日 童贞([[virginity]])崇拜广泛存在于各大文化中,定居农业社会尤为盛行,时至今日,处女党队伍在某些国家依然庞大,妇产科医生们时而还会遇到男性咨询者请教如何甄别女友是否为处女,为此有人甚至不惜将女友私处照片上传到健康咨询网站上。 对童贞的要求曾经是男性觅偶策略([[mating strategy]])的一部分,历史上,由于人类幼儿特别沉重的养育负担,人类后代抚养模式经历了一个从单亲抚养向双亲合作抚养的转变过程,在此过程中男性对家庭与子女的情感与资源投入不断增加,然而在亲代投资问题上,男性面临一个根本障碍:亲子关系的不确定性,而对童贞的强调正是用来克服这一障碍的方法。 新娘的童贞可以让丈夫相信至少头胎孩子是自己的,否则他就需要将新娘闺禁小半年以确认其此前未怀孕,更重要的是,婚前守贞的历史,是判断妻子今后出轨风险的重要信号,所以一旦谈判地位(这一地位随男方在家庭中投入资源的比例增加而提高)允许,男性就会对童贞提出要求。 不过童贞并不容易识别,它意味着在很长一段时间内没有发生过某种事情,要证明这一点非常困难;传统中国社会的流行做法是,将达到性成熟年龄的女孩置于严密监控的隔离制度之下:多数时间关在与外界隔绝的闺房里,通过缠足削弱其行动能力,外出须由女眷陪伴,且活动时间与地点皆有严格限制,还有一整套社交规范限制其与成年异性的接触。 这么做成本相当高,不仅损失了受控女性的生产力,还要耗费监控者(通常由女性长辈或女佣担任)的大量时间,即便如此,其成效就个案而言也是无从验证的,而只能体现在这套系统在家族历史上的长期执行效果(即所谓的“家风([[family honor]])”)上。 为此而建立的各种昂贵设施和制度,其实是一种信誉抵押品,相当于品牌厂商所投入的巨额广告费,借此告诉买家:如果我闹出丑闻,这些投资就全部泡汤、甚至会成为我的负资产(一个难以洗刷的坏名声),所以你可以相信:我会尽力避免这种事情发生。 这样昂贵的闺禁系统,只有大户人家才负担得起,穷人就只能求助于其他更廉价的措施,比如早点把女儿嫁出去,把闺禁负担转移给夫家,或者用石刑、火刑和沉潭之类的事后严酷惩罚来威慑女孩守贞[1],而其中最简单粗暴的做法,莫过于流行于非洲北部和阿拉伯地区的女性割礼,对生殖器的残毁与缝合使得婚前性行为根本不可能发生。 所有这些措施的重点都在于行为控制,但假如性交会在女性身体上造成某种不可逆的改变,那么童贞便无须依赖对个人历史的了解而可直接由当前状态而得到验证了,就像盖印封蜡的完整性可以证明信件在封印之后从未被打开过,曾几何时,人们为童贞也找到(或以为找到)了这样的封印——处女膜,尽管它实际上和封蜡一样并不那么可靠。 于是,从童贞崇拜衍生出了更专门化的处女膜崇拜。 然而,童贞崇拜以及围绕它而发展出的整套贞操文化,尽管在降低亲子关系不确定性从而提高男性对家庭的投资意愿上确实起到了作用,但同时也带来了一个出人意料的后果:对贞操的极端苛求实际上鼓励了强奸。 这种鼓励以两种不同方式发生,首先是强奸受害者经常不敢揭发强奸罪行,因为在贞操文化中失贞(即便是由强奸所导致)被视为非常丢脸的事情,失贞者可能因此而遭受严酷惩罚,甚至会被荣誉处决,所以假如强奸是发生在隐秘场合,受害者很可能隐忍不发,而许多男性正是利用这一心理才敢大胆施暴。 第二种与传统社会处理强奸案的习俗有关,由于失贞使得强奸受害者在婚姻市场上的地位大幅跌落,她与强奸者发生过性关系这一事实,在所有潜在配偶看来都是个难以容忍的污点,除了强奸者本人,这样,强奸实际上造成了一种单边垄断局面,强奸者通过实施强奸为自己取得了垄断地位:受害者除了嫁个他,几乎别无选择(除非她愿意接受最差的条件)。 所以在许多传统社会,强奸受害者的家庭,往往会要求强奸者娶受害者,以此了结案件,只有当强奸者拒绝(或不可能)这么做时,受害方才寻求其他惩罚或报复手段;可是这样一来,就为那些因为贫穷、地位低下、丑陋或身体残疾而没有能力通过常规正当渠道娶到妻子的人提供了一个额外机会:通过强奸获得妻子,这种做法,不妨称之为掠夺性强奸。 掠夺性强奸可以视为一种特殊的抢婚,实际上,广泛流行于中亚社会的抢婚,真是基于人们对被抢女孩贞操的怀疑而得以流行,所以真正的抢婚行动多半都伴随着强奸,这样即便没有真的发生强奸,女孩的贞操也不再可信,于是女方家庭被迫接受婚姻。(当然,抢婚习俗在某些地方如今已丧失了掠夺性实质,只剩下一个仪式性的外表了。) 童贞崇拜和掠夺性强奸的上述关系,从一个特殊案例中可以看得更清楚;在太平洋西波利尼西亚的萨摩亚社会,童贞崇拜和掠夺性强奸协同发展到了一种极端的形态,人类学家德里克·弗里曼([[Derek Freeman]])在《玛格丽特·米德与萨摩亚》[2]一书中对此作了详细介绍。 萨摩亚人极端重视童贞,尤其表现为处女膜崇拜,女孩被兄长们看管的很严;在萨摩亚传统婚礼上,有一项重要仪式:新娘裸体站在众人面前,由新郎(如果新郎是位高级酋长,就由他的首席议事酋长代劳)当众用右手食指加中指刺破新娘的处女膜,然后骄傲的高举手臂展示带血手指,于是众人才开始赞颂与庆贺。 这种情况下,假如经过两次尝试后新郎手指未见沾血,婚礼将被取消,新娘会当即遭受其家人的严厉责罚,在较早年代甚至可能被当众乱棍打死。萨摩亚男人将亲手破贞并沾得处女血视为一项极大荣耀,多次成功破贞(无论是在婚礼上还是通过暴力强迫)的男人将被奉为英雄,尤其是当对象是其他村庄的高地位处女时;吹嘘曾给某某处女破贞,是男人们私下闲聊的重要主题。 同时,萨摩亚社会中发生的强奸与其他社会有着明显不同,强奸的主要对象是处女,而强奸的首要目的是破贞而不是完成常规性交,通常做法是,用拳头猛击女孩胸窝令其暂时丧失呼叫能力,然后迅速将一根或两根手指插入,刺破处女膜,一旦得手并沾血,常会狂喜大呼,只有在不到一半的案例中,强奸者会继续完成性交。 类似的强奸方式也会以一种偷偷摸摸但更有效的方式进行,强奸者在深夜或凌晨偷偷潜入事先选定的处女卧室,趁其熟睡之际迅速完成手指破贞,以此方式发生的强奸案比前一种更加普遍,它在萨摩亚语里被称为“莫托托洛(moetotolo)”,字面意思是“睡觉时爬进来”。 无论是通过哪种方式,强奸行动如果失败(未能完成手指插入),强奸者若被抓住就会遭受严厉惩罚,可一旦成功,和上述其他社会的习俗一样,被强奸女孩的家族通常会答应把女孩嫁给他,后者只须支付一笔赔偿;所以很明显,对于那些没有能力通过正常渠道娶妻的男性,这是一种获得妻子的可行方法,实际上,这也正是萨摩亚社会强奸作案者的主要动机。 男人控制运用自己的手指,比控制运用自己的生殖器,显然容易得多,因而完成手指破贞的成功机会也比完成常规性交大得多,所以既然这些强奸的首要动机是掠夺配偶而不是满足性欲,也就不难理解为何强奸者会将手指破贞而不是常规性交作为其行动的核心目标了。 童贞乃至处女膜崇拜,最终会孕育出对女性具有如此伤害性的副产品,真是一齣文化悲剧。 注: [1]这些惩罚措施在一些文化中被称为“荣誉处决([[honor killing]])”,其功能除了震慑女性之外,也有宣示家族守贞决心的作用,类似于品牌厂商的大规模召回或销毁质量可疑产品的行动,借此可以告诉世人,他们在维护族内女性贞操问题上是非常严肃且不惜代价的。 [2]弗里曼此书本意是在反驳玛格丽特·米德([[Margaret Mead]])在其名著《萨摩亚的成年》中对萨摩亚社会与人格特征的描绘,不过该书对萨摩亚历史背景和一些重要社会特征的阐述相当透彻,完全适合作为一本普通人类学著作阅读。
[微言]萨林斯、米德与文化人类学

【2014-04-12】

@刘夙 【文明和科学的出现 – 世界科学技术文化史第三讲】 首发十五言。今天把前三讲都发出来吧。这三讲构成第一单元,这个单元的一大目的是把一些必要的理论铺垫好,方便后面的讨论。本讲讨论了不少演化心理学的内容,请@非言语 老师斧正。[呵呵] http://t.cn/8sCA8Ub

@whigzhou: 对前农业社会的描述看来受萨林斯误导较多,对部落/酋邦/城市/国家起源与功能的叙述太草率,经不住推敲,其余还不错

@lxxpoooooonder 辉格老师,萨林斯的不足(more...)

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【2014-04-12】 @刘夙 【文明和科学的出现 - 世界科学技术文化史第三讲】 首发十五言。今天把前三讲都发出来吧。这三讲构成第一单元,这个单元的一大目的是把一些必要的理论铺垫好,方便后面的讨论。本讲讨论了不少演化心理学的内容,请@非言语 老师斧正。[呵呵] http://t.cn/8sCA8Ub @whigzhou: 对前农业社会的描述看来受萨林斯误导较多,对部落/酋邦/城市/国家起源与功能的叙述太草率,经不住推敲,其余还不错 @lxxpoooooonder 辉格老师,萨林斯的不足在哪?我看完石器时代经济学还是挺信服的 @whigzhou: 萨林斯的主要问题是,否认人口压力和人类基本需求与资源稀缺性之间的紧张,否认这些压力带来的竞争与冲突构成了社会进化的基本动力,也顽固抵制进化论在社会科学中的运用,但同时他没有提供一个替代的解释性理论 @whigzhou: 经博厄斯-米德-萨林斯一系的发展,文化人类学变成了一门只描述不解释的学问,越来越像一种收集各种五彩贝壳的爱好,依我看,人类学因为这批人至少停滞了一代人时间,和心理学被行为主义耽误的程度差不多 @whigzhou: 好在从90年代开始,越来越多人类学家接受进化论和进化人类学的研究范式,估计再过几年等萨林斯的门徒们都退休了,文化人类学这个学科大概就作废了 @whigzhou: 这一范式转变的一个标志性事件是,进化人类学领军人物拿破仑·香农(Napoleon Chagnon)去年当选美国国家科学院院士,对此,萨林斯辞职以示抗议 【2014-05-07】 @whigzhou: 读过《玛格丽特·米德与萨摩亚》 ★★★★ “简直像重量级拳手扇黄毛丫头耳光啊” http://t.cn/ad0Sc0  
[微言]幼子溺爱

【2014-04-04】

@whigzhou: 幼子溺爱(对排行最小的儿子的特殊宠爱和放纵)似乎广泛存在于各种文化,已见到许多人类学材料提到这一现象,不知有谁提出过什么解释

 

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【2014-04-04】 @whigzhou: 幼子溺爱(对排行最小的儿子的特殊宠爱和放纵)似乎广泛存在于各种文化,已见到许多人类学材料提到这一现象,不知有谁提出过什么解释