狗狗品種遊戲（狗狗的起源TheOrigin）
2023-05-23 13:45:18 2
數萬年前，在人類還沒有經歷工業革命，沒有發明金屬冶煉，甚至還沒有開始農耕生活的時候，我們的祖先就已經和灰狼形成了一種互惠的關係。從那個時候開始，兩個種族就一直生活在一起，影響著彼此。「人類最好的朋友」狗狗和兇狠的狼之間有什麼聯繫呢？
Tens of thousands of years ago, early humans formed an unlikely partnership with another animal.
數萬年前，早期人類與另一種動物形成了一種不太可能的夥伴關係。
The grey wolf.
即灰狼。
Over time, the wolves changed in body and temperament.
隨著時間的推移，狼的身體和氣質發生了變化。
Their skulls, teeth and paws shrank.
他們的頭骨、牙齒和爪子縮小。
Their ears flopped.
耳朵也變歪了。
They gained a docile disposition, becoming both less frightening and less fearful.
他們擁有了一個好性格，變得不那麼可怕，也不那麼讓人畏而遠之。
They turned into dogs.
他們變成了狗。
Scientists agree that all dogs descend from wild ancestral wolves, but they disagree as to when, where and how that happened.
科學家們一致認為狗的祖先是野生狼，但有關這一改變是在何時、何地和如何發生的仍存分歧。
Gregor Larson from the University of Oxford has been trying to get some firm answers.
牛津大學的Gregor Larson一直試圖找到一些確切的答案。
Already, he and his team have yielded a surprising discovery.
他和他的團隊已經有了一個驚人的發現。
They think dogs were domesticated not once but twice.
他們認為狗不僅被馴養一次，而是兩次。
So here's the full story as Larson sees it.
這就是拉森所得到的全部故事。
Many thousands of years ago, somewhere in western Urasia, humans domesticated grey wolves.
幾千年前，在亞歐大陸西部的某個地方，人類馴養了灰狼。
And the same thing happened independently far away in the East.
在遙遠的東方也發生著同樣的事情。
Around the Bronze Age, some of the ancient eastern dogs migrated west alongside their human partners.
青銅時代，一些古老的東方狗和人類夥伴一起向西遷徙。
And along their travels, these migrants encountered the indigenous, ancient western dogs.
旅途中，這些移民遇到了土生土長的古老西方狗。
They mated with them, doggy style presumably and effectively replaced them.
東西方的狗相互交配，用的就是狗狗的方式並取代了東方狗。
So today's western dogs trace most of their ancestry to the ancient eastern migrants.
所以今天西方狗的大部分祖先都要追溯到古代的東方移民。
Less than 10% comes from those ancient western dogs, which have since gone extinct.
僅有不到10%的狗來自那些已經滅絕的古老西方狗。
Other dog genetics experts think that there are other possible explanations, but Larson adds that his gene focused peers are ignoring one crucial line of evidence - bones.
其他的狗遺傳學專家認為還有其他可能的解釋，但拉森補充說，同齡人對基因的關注忽視了一個關鍵的證據線——骨骼。
If dogs originated just once, there should be a neat gradient of fossils with the oldest ones at the center of domestication and the youngest ones far away from it.
如果狗只進化一次，那呈現出來的就是一個一個整齊的化石梯度，另外，最年幼的狗狗是離馴養中心最遠的。
But that's not what we have.
但這和我們目前所掌握的不盡一致。
So we now have a new origin story for dogs.
所以我們現在有了一個新版本的起源故事。
And this matters because dogs were the first species that we domesticated.
這很重要，因為狗是我們馴養的第一個物種。
They came before crops, before livestock.
它們的出現先於莊稼，先於牲畜。
They heralded a change in our relationship to the natural world.
它們預示著我們與自然世界關係的改變。
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