Part A :

Good afternoon, everyone!

大家下午好!

This is the first seminar in preparation for our archaeological fieldwork in Namibia,

这是在纳米比亚野外考古的第一次研讨会：

We are fantastically lucky to have received partial research funding for this trip from our institute, so I shall expect 200% attention and participation from you all.

我们非常幸运收到我院部分研究经费，所以我期待200％的关注和你们的参与。

First in this seminar, I'm going to give a brief introduction to contemporary research on rock art, and in the second part I'm going to give you some do's and don'ts for our fieldwork trip in April— so please listen very carefully.

在本次研讨会上，我将简要介绍对岩石的当代艺术研究，并在第二部分，我要给你一些我们在四月实地考察旅行时应该做的和不应该做的，请仔细听我说。

I'm first going to focus on the interpretation of rock art in Namibia, we are very fortunate to be going to an area where you can find some of the most important sites in the entire world.

我首先要把重点放在纳米比亚的岩石艺术的解释上。我们很幸运，能去一个你可以在全世界找到一些最重要的考察点的地区。

And I hope to show you how easy it is for everyone to make mistakes in looking at cultures which are different from our own- the first and most important lesson we have to learn.

我希望能向你展示，对于看不同于我们自己的文化的时候，每个人都是多么容易犯错误，这是我们必须要学习的第一课也是最重要的一课。

In Namibia there are both paintings and engraving-that's where the surface of the rock is cut out.

在纳米比亚，在岩石的切面，既有绘画和雕刻。

Many of the engravings show footprints of animals and most scholars used to think that the purpose of these was simple and obvious.

许多的版画展示动物的脚印，大多数学者认为目的是显而易见的：

This rock art was like a school book with picture to teach children about tracks which tracks belonged to which animal-giraffe, lion and so on.

这岩石艺术就像一个学校的书里的图片教孩子们关于：脚印跟踪，这些脚印分别属于哪个动物，如长颈鹿，狮子等等。

But there were some mysteries.

但也有一些未解之谜。

First, when you look at a typical Namibian painting or engraving, you see the tracks are repeated, there are dozens of tracks for the same animal.

首先，当你看一个典型的纳米比亚绘画或雕刻，你看到有及时对相同动物的脚印重复出现。如果壁画的目的是教给孩子跟踪脚印，

You'd expect just one clear illustration if the reason-the aim-was to teach tracking.

你希望有一个更明确的相关说明。

Now there were two more problems, why are some of the engraving of animals very accurate as you'd expect-all clearly identifiable-and others quite unrealistic.

现在还有更多的问题。为什么有些动物很准确，正如你所期望的，一切清晰可辨，其他的确是很不切实际的插图吗?

And another mystery-some of these unrealistic animals-that's in the engravings- seem to be half human.

另一个谜是在版画中有一些不切实际的动物，似乎半人的。

Some, for example, have got human faces.

例如，有人的面孔。

Many researchers now think that these were pictures the wise men engraved of themselves.

许多研究人员现在认为，这些照片是聪明人自己雕刻的。

They believed they could use magic to control the animals they had drawn, so the hunters could then catch them for food.

他们相信他们可以用魔法来控制他们所画的动物，所以猎人们可以捕捉到食物。

This shows you some of the dangers of coming from one culture to another, as we'll be doing, without understanding it fully.

这展现出你有杜撰从一种文化到另一种危险，因为没有完全理解它就去猜测了。

Scholars imagined that children looked at rock art pictures to learn to track-just because they themselves had learnt skills from pictures, many researchers now believe that rock art had a much more complex purpose, and we'll talk more about it next week.

学者们猜测孩子们通过看岩石艺术图片来学习，只是因为他们自己通过图画中来学习：许多研究人员现在认为，岩石艺术有更复杂的目的。我们将在下周再谈!