《中英對照讀新聞》Finger fossil puts people in Arabia at least 86,000 years ago 手指化石揭密，人類現蹤阿拉伯半島早於8.6萬年前

◎劉宜庭

A single human finger bone from at least 86,000 years ago points to Arabia as a key destination for Stone Age excursions out of Africa that allowed people to rapidly spread across Asia.

至少8萬6000年前的一件人類手指骨骼顯示，阿拉伯半島是石器時代人類遷出非洲的重要地點，人類藉此迅速擴散至亞洲。

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Excavations at Al Wusta, a site in Saudi Arabia’s Nefud desert, produced this diminutive discovery. It’s the oldest known Homo sapiens fossil outside of Africa and the narrow strip of the Middle East that joins Africa with Asia, based on dating of the bone itself, says a team led by archaeologists Huw Groucutt and Michael Petraglia.

這項微型證據產於沙烏地阿拉伯內夫得沙漠中一處遺址、位於中央區的出土文物。考古學家豪烏畢．格魯卡特和米赫依．派特利雅領導的團隊表示，根據該件骨骼的定年，它是迄今在非洲以外所發現最古老的智人化石，並指出這塊中東地區的狹長地帶，連結非洲與亞洲。

This new find strengthens the idea that early human dispersals out of Africa began well before the traditional estimated departure time of 60,000 years ago and extended deep into Arabia, the scientists report April 9 in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

科學家在4月9日刊登於《自然生態學與進化》期刊的報告中表示，這項新發現強化了以下觀點：早期人類遷出非洲的時間，早於傳統上估計的6萬年前，人類的擴散並曾深入阿拉伯半島。

The 2016 Al Wusta find is probably the middle bone from an adult’s middle finger, suspects Groucutt, of the University of Oxford. It’s unclear whether the bone came from a man or a woman, or from a right or left hand.

牛津大學的格魯卡特猜測，這件2016年在中央區的發現，可能是一名成人的中指中節指骨。但還不清楚這塊骨骼來自男性或女性，是右手或左手。

新聞辭典

fossil：名詞，化石。例句：Along with the finger, Al Wusta yielded 380 stone tools and 860 nonhuman animal fossils from the same time.（在中央區和手指一起出土的還有380件石器、860件非人類的動物化石。）

arabian：名詞，阿拉伯人；形容詞，阿拉伯（半島）的。例句：Some of those animals, including hippos and gazelles, originated in Africa and no longer inhabit the Arabian Peninsula.（其中一些動物，包括河馬和瞪羚，牠們源自非洲，且不再棲息於阿拉伯半島。）

excursion：名詞，短途旅行。例句：Rita tried to map out excursions for the morrow.（芮塔嘗試規劃翌日的旅程。）

中英對照讀新聞#阿拉伯半島