2012-08-30 21:58:27
来源:Discovery News 作者:Alyssa Danigelis 链接:http://news./animals/shark-teeth-weapon-photos-120817.html 翻译:刘聪 Conservation biologist Joshua Drew just wanted a fun project to take his mind off his job search, so he turned to the massive anthropological collections in Chicago’s Field Museum where he was a postdoc. 保育生物学家Joshua Drew想要寻找一个有趣的项目让他的注意力从工作上移开,于是他将视线集中到了芝加哥自然博物馆大量的人类学收藏中——他曾在该博物馆攻读博士后学位。 Curious about the relationship between cultural and biological diversity, he focused on sharks and the Pacific Islanders who relied on them. He studied shark-teeth weaponry from the 1800s that was crafted and used by people of the Gilbert Islands, an island chain in the country Kiribati that straddles the Equator. 出于对文化和生物多样性之间关系的好奇,他将注意力集中于鲨鱼以及依靠它们谋生的太平洋岛民。他研究来自19世纪的用鲨鱼牙武器,它们由吉尔伯特群岛的人们制作和使用,该列岛属于横跨赤道的国家基里巴斯。 “Sharks are an incredibly important ecosystem engineer, but they’re also incredibly important to the culture of the Gilbertese people,” Drew said. His research turned into more than a mere relaxing distraction. After landing a lecturer position at Columbia University, Drew recently presented his findings at the Ecological Society of America’s annual meeting in Portland, Oregon. Drew说,“鲨鱼是非常重要的生态工程师,但它们对于吉尔伯特人的文化来说也非常重要。”他的研究变得不仅仅是一个放松的消遣。在哥伦比亚大学开过讲座之后,Drew最近将他的发现在俄勒冈州波特兰举办的美国生物学会年会上进行了展示。 It turns out the ferocious-looking weapons were made from sharks that scientists had never seen in the Islands. 结果,这些看起来可怕的武器竟然来自于科学家们从未在该群岛发现的鲨鱼品种。 Drew got help for his project from the Field Museum’s anthropology holdings collections manager to get access. The shark-tooth weapons, originally made for combat between villages and initiation rites, ranged from smaller swords to extremely long spears. A few were frayed because they'd been used. Most items were stored in vaults and some were in a separate oversized collection. Six-foot-tall Drew lay down next to one lance and found it was more than double his height. Drew的项目得到了帮助——自然博物馆人类学收藏保管部给与了他许可。这些鲨鱼牙齿武器最初被制作用于村庄间的战斗和成年礼,从较小的剑到极长的矛都应有尽有。其中若干有磨损迹象,因为它们曾被使用过。大多数武器都被储存在地窖里,另一些则单独列入一个大型收藏。六英尺高的Drew躺在一支长矛旁边,发现它超出其身高两倍有余。 Anthropologists who went to the Gilbert Islands with early missionaries observed how the weapons were originally made, he said. First, holes were drilled into the teeth using a snail shell. Then each tooth was lashed to a wooden core with coconut fiber, and wood slats buttressed it on either side. Cords added grip to handles. 他说,与早期传教士一同达到吉尔伯特群岛的人类学家们对那些武器原本的制作方式进行了观察。首先,使用蜗牛壳在牙齿上钻孔,然后将每枚牙齿用椰子纤维捆绑在一个木核上,并用木板支撑其两边。最后用绳索将手柄捆在把手上。 The Gilbertese had customs about who could fish sharks, what they were allowed to do, and what they weren’t, Drew said. Shark fishing was clearly an important cultural component so the weapons were probably crafted from the sharks they caught, he added. In all, the Field Museum has 124 of these weapons. Drew说,吉尔伯特人的习俗规定了谁可以捕猎鲨鱼,他们可以做什么,以及不可以做什么。他还说,很明显,鲨鱼的猎捕是一个重要文化元素,故而那些武器很可能就是从他们捉到的鲨鱼上取得的。总之,自然博物馆拥有124件这样的武器。 The numerous shark-tooth weapons mainly came from a wealthy British collector who amassed them through auction and left them to the museum in his will. All the weapons date from the early 1840s through the 1880s, and they were assumed to have been constructed relatively soon before they were purchased. 这些大量的鲨鱼牙齿武器主要来自于一位富有的英国收藏夹,他通过拍卖收集了它们,然后在其遗嘱中将它们捐献给了博物馆。所有这些武器来自19世纪40至80年代,我们假定它们在被买下后不久就进行了修复。 These collections are remarkable for several reasons. For one, the collection dates predated the first thorough scientific fish surveys of the Gilbert Islands by several decades, Drew said. Ichthyology didn’t start to take off in the area until an Australian museum tour in the 1920s. 这些收藏因为若干原因非常引人瞩目。其一,这些收藏的年代比吉尔伯特群岛严谨科学的鱼类调查早了几十年,Drew说。直至20世纪20年代一座澳大利亚博物馆的旅行考察之后,这一地区的鱼类学研究才开始。 And, with such a large number of weapons to study, similarities among them were easier to spot. "When we found something atypical, it really stood out." 同时,在有如此大量武器可供研究的情况下,它们之间的相似性是很容易被发现的。“当我们发现了某些非典型的东西,它真的能很快浮出水面。” Different species can be identified by carefully examining the type and locations of serrations on the tooth, but no official key currently exists. Drew persevered using multiple tools and resources. He downloaded free shark guides with illustrations from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) online and also tapped into the Field Museum’s holdings to look at shark jaws up close. 我们可以通过详细观察牙齿上锯齿的位置和类型来判断不同的(鲨鱼)种类,然而,目前我们尚未发现明显的特征存在。Drew坚持使用多种工具和资源,他从联合国粮食及农业组织的网站上下载了附有说明的免费鲨鱼指南,还进入自然历史博物馆的藏品库,近距离观察鲨鱼的下颚。 “A couple of the species are fairly tough to discriminate unless you have a really, really good picture of them so it’s great to have that reference material right there,” he said of the jaws. 在谈到(鲨鱼)颌骨时,他说,“一些鲨鱼种类是很难辨认的——除非你对它们有非常好的了解,所以能够有相匹配的物质材料是一件大好事。” Poring over the ridges on the shark teeth from the weapons and checking scientific records, Drew found three species -- Carcharhinus sorrah, Carcharhinus obscurus, and Carcharhinus altimus -- that weren’t listed in the earliest surveys and haven’t been recorded since. 在仔细观察武器上鲨鱼牙齿的脊线和查阅科学记录之后,Drew发现,沙拉真鲨,灰真鲨和大鼻真鲨这三个种类的鲨鱼并没有被列入最早的调查中,之前也没有被记录。 Although locally extinct, sorrah or spot-tail sharks are found today in the Solomon Islands. Obscurus, the dusky shark, is a continental shark mostly found across Australia and Asia. Altimus, the bignose shark, has been recorded in Hawaii but tends to inhabit extremely deep waters. The Gilbertese have a cultural record of deep fishing, Drew said. “It doesn’t surprise me that they were picking that up.” 虽然沙拉真鲨(或尾点鲨)已在当地绝迹,但今天仍能在所罗门群岛发现它们。灰真鲨则属于大陆性鲨鱼,大多发现于澳洲和亚洲地区。而大鼻真鲨据记录出现于夏威夷附近,但它们多栖息于极深的水域。吉尔伯特人拥有关于深海捕鱼的文化记录,Drew说,“我毫不惊讶他们能学会这项技能。” One question that Drew often fields about the missing species is whether the Gilbertese simply traded for those shark teeth. Drew在推导那些失踪物种的过程中遇到的一个问题是:是否吉尔伯特人通过交易仅仅换取这些鲨鱼的牙齿。 “We're making the implicit assumption that the teeth on the weapons came from the reefs where the people were fishing,” he said. But the island is also extremely remote. In addition, Drew said there’s no archaeological, ethnographic or linguistic evidence that the Gilbertese people traded with anyone in areas where those shark species are found today. 他说,“我们想做出一个保守的假设,即武器上的牙齿来自于人们捕鱼的礁石附近。”但是该岛屿也相当遥远。此外,Drew说,没有任何考古学、民族学或是语言学的证据证明,吉尔伯特人与任何现存那些鲨鱼物种的地区的人们有过贸易交换。 Commercial shark fishing in the Gilbert Islands was known as far back as 1910. Shark fins were easy to trade because they kept without refrigeration, didn’t weigh much, and the value per ounce was high, Drew said. The capital had a largely Chinese immigrant population that, as it grew, saw opportunities to ship shark fins to China. By the 1950s, the Gilbert Islands were exporting more than 6,500 pounds of shark fins annually. 我们知道,吉尔伯特群岛的商业性鲨鱼捕猎能够追溯到1910年。Drew说,鲨鱼鳍很容易进行交易,因为它们不需要冷藏保存,重量轻,同时每盎司的价值很高。当地有一批庞大的中国移民,随着它的增长,人们看到了将鱼翅运送到中国的机遇。直至20世纪50年代,吉尔伯特群岛每年出口超过6500英镑的鱼翅。 “They’re large fish, they grow slowly, they don’t give birth until they’re fairly old, and when they do give birth they don’t give birth to a lot,” Drew said. “It’s a perfect combination if you were trying to come up with a species to drive to extinction, which is really unfortunate for sharks.” “它们是大型鱼类,它们生长缓慢,它们知道相当大的年纪才生育,而当它们生育时,并不会生下很多后代,”Drew说,“如果你试图去了解一个濒危物种,那将是一种完美的结合——正走向灭绝的杀郁闷是多么不幸。” Drew isn’t absolutely sure why those three shark species whose teeth were woven into weapons are no longer there. He can’t say whether factors like environmental declines, disease, or introduced species played a role, but he does suggest that human activity is a strong candidate. Drew并不能确定,为什么那三种牙齿被编织到武器中的鲨鱼如今在那里已不复存在。他不能讲明诸如环境衰退、疾病或是物种入侵一类的因素有没有对其造成影响,但是他指出,人类行为应该是一个重要的嫌犯。 “The world that the Gilbertese Islanders now experience, the reef that they now experience, is fundamentally duller than the ones that their forefathers experienced,” Drew said. “吉尔伯特岛民现在经历的这个世界,经历的那片礁石,比起他们的祖先,从根本上说是枯燥乏味的。”Drew说道。 In a way, the Field Museum collection is a biodiversity time capsule that reveals shadows of how vibrant the Gilbert Island reefs once were before scientists ever visited them. Drew calls this idea “shadow diversity.” 从某种程度上说,自然历史博物馆的收藏是一个生物多样性的时空胶囊,它展示了这样的时空阴影面:吉尔伯特岛的礁石在科学家们到达之前是多么生机勃勃。Drew把这个观点成为“阴影多样性。” However, Drew doesn't want the public to get so stuck on the loss that it becomes discouraged about shark conservation. “These reefs used to have large, vibrant populations of predatory fishes,” he said. "There's no reason why they can't today." 然而,Drew并不希望公众被这种失去所困,对鲨鱼的保护感到气馁。“这些礁石附近曾经有大量的、生气勃勃的食肉鱼类,”他说,“没有理由今天不能再次出现。” |
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