Susan's Big History：All in a Flash

历史文化学者苏三2016年创作的新书《苏三大历史 ——忽然》（Susan's Big History：All in a Flash）图文并茂共2.9万字，用七章讲述了三个人类文明传承的故事，解释了迄今为止的文明发展规律与中国崛起原因。本书印刷版及电子版尚未上市，本刊获得作者授权全网首发连载，转载及合作请联系本刊主编。感兴趣的读者可加入苏三读者群，与作者苏三直接互动交流。

第一个故事：高更天问

The First Story: Gauguin's Questions

This bookfocuses on three stories. The first one is about Gauguin’s questions.

高更有幅名画，《我们从哪里来，我们是谁，我们到哪里去？》。这是著名的哲学命题。在古代，这些问题很难回答，但在今天似乎有了初步的答案。

In 1897, Paul Gauguin, a French painter,drew a famous painting: Where do we comefrom? What are we? Where are we going? These philosophical questions usedto be very difficult to answer, but now they are just a cup of tea.

1. 人类起源与气候的关系

1.Climate and Birth of Mankind

1.2 为何人类人类起源非洲

1.2Anthropogenesis in African

人类到底是如何诞生的呢?

人类学才100多年，全球史的形成也就是上世纪的事，所以我们对于自我的认识才刚刚开始，并不是所有的事情都是清楚的。

另外，现在许多所谓“科学结论”其实都是科学家的猜想。有关人类及文明的起源，更是猜想或假设。下面就是人类学家们的一些大致猜想。

Anthropology has been there for only more than one century as with the formation of globalhistory. That is to say, it was only 100 years ago that we began to understand ourselves. Besides, almost everything about the anthropogenesis and their civilization are practically hypothetical. What follows are some of the assumptions of anthropologists.

All gnathostome animals, including humans, are believed to have been evolved from an ancientshark hundreds of millions of years ago.

灵长类动物出现于大约4千万年前的非洲，然后分化出了猴子、狒狒与猿人等。

Primates appeared 40 million years ago in Africa before they evolved into monkeys, baboons andhumans.

再早所有的有颌类动物都来自一种古鲨鱼，包括人类，不过那是几亿年前。

猿出现于大约3千万年前。2千多万年前进化出了类人猿。1千万年前非洲东部出现了大裂谷，全球气候大变，非洲丛林变草原，有一种古猿在非洲草原经过几百万年进化，最后成为双足人科动物。

Apes appeared about 30 million years ago and anthropoids were evolved from apes over 20million years ago. The Great Rift Valley took shape in East Africa one millionyears ago when global climate changed and the jungles of Africa became grasslands. In the long run, a kind of Australopithecus there became Bipedal after millions of years of evolution.

250万年前气候再次大变，许多猿人消亡，但有一个支系可能因智力因素成功应对了险恶的环境而在非洲幸存下来，这就是能人。

(Probable looks of anthropoid / 猿人可能的样子)

Another climatechange of 2.5 million years ago had a huge toll on anthropoids except for onebranch of homo habilis that managed to survive.

Homohabilis lived in the Palaeolithic Age, and they created Old owan Culture in Tanzania.

所谓“旧石器时代”就是从能人开始的，其主要标志就是东非坦桑尼亚发现的奥杜威文化。

(Evolution of apes )

(Evolution of humans )

几十万年后，直立人出现，他们普遍使用了火，最终他们取代了能人。他们还会加工使用精细的工具，比如阿舍利手斧。

（阿舍利手斧 / Acheulianhand axes）

Hundreds of thousands of years later, homo erectus emerged. They used fire and finely madeprocessing tools such as Acheulian hand axes. The evolution of Herectus in Africa 1.8 million years ago also marked a third turning point in the evolution of human beings: their going out of Africa. But they never arrived America.

直立人从大约100多万年前开始走出非洲，比如北京猿人、欧洲的海德堡人等就是这些直立人的后代。180 万年前的格鲁吉亚是迄今为止 在非洲之外发现最早人类化石的地方。这也意味着在此期间地球气候处于一个长时间的暖期阶段。猿人和早期智人始终都没有进入到过美洲，说明地缘对于人类的发展一直是个决定性因素，当然背后是气候的作用，地球一变冷旧大陆北部的人类就马上撤回赤道地区。

( Probable looks of Neanderthals/尼安德特人的可能样子 )

大约25万年前出现了智人。

Homo sapiens appeared about 250 thousand years ago. Neanderthals who mainly inhabited in Europe and the surrounding areas also belonged to Homo sapiens. We are late Homo sapiens.

We are also called modern humans.

这时期主要分布在欧洲及周边地区的尼安德特人也属于智人。

晚期的智人就是我们,我们的人类学学名是“现代人”。

( 这些古人都是“现代人”/Allthose in the painting are “modern humans”)

非洲现代人很可能在大约13万年前曾离开非洲进入过旧大陆，并且他们可能是从曼德海峡进入亚洲的 。

未完待续