2 HUMANS ARE ANIMALS

1 HUMANS ARE ANIMALS

1人是动物

WE USED TO BE WILD OUR STORY STARTS MILLIONS OF YEARS AGO. BACK THEN, humans were just ordinary animals. People didn't live in houses, didn't go to work or to school, and didn't have cars, computers or supermarkets. They lived in the wild, they climbed trees to pick fruit, they sniffed around looking for mushrooms and they ate worms, snails and frogs. The other animals — giraffes, zebras and baboons, for instance — weren't afraid of humans and didn't pay them much attention. Nobody imagined that one day humans would fly to the Moon, make atom bombs or write books, like the one you're reading now. At first, humans didn't even know how to make tools. Sometimes they used stones to crack nuts. But they didn't have bows and arrows, spears or knives. Humans were relatively weak animals, and whenever a lion or a bear appeared, humans had to run away — and fast! Nowadays, a lot of kids still wake up in the middle of the night, frightened that there's a monster under the bed. This is a memory from millions of years ago. In the past, there really were monsters that sneaked up on children in the night. If you heard a noise in the dark, it could have been a lion coming to eat you. If you quickly climbed to the top of a tree, you survived. But if you went back to sleep, the lion ate you. Sometimes, when lions killed a giraffe and ate it, people would watch from a safe distance. They wanted some meat for themselves, but they were too afraid to come close. Even after the lions left, the humans still didn't dare approach. Because the hyenas had moved in to eat the leftovers — and humans were afraid to pick a fight with that quarrelsome bunch. Finally, when all

我们曾经是狂野的我们的故事开始于数百万年前。 那时，人类只是普通的动物。 人们没有房子住，没有上班或上学，没有汽车、电脑或超市。 他们生活在野外，他们爬上树摘水果，他们嗅着寻找蘑菇，他们吃蠕虫，蜗牛和青蛙。 其他动物——例如长颈鹿、斑马和狒狒——并不害怕人类，也不太注意人类。 没有人想到有一天人类会飞向月球，制造原子弹或写书，就像你现在读的这本书一样。 起初，人类甚至不知道如何制造工具。 有时他们用石头敲开坚果。 但是他们没有弓箭、矛和刀。 人类是相对弱小的动物，只要有狮子或熊出现，人类就得跑开——而且要快！现在，很多孩子仍然在半夜醒来，害怕床底下有怪物。 这是数百万年前的记忆。 在过去，真的有妖怪会在夜里悄悄靠近孩子们。 如果你在黑暗中听到声音，那可能是狮子来吃你了。 如果你迅速爬到树顶，你就活了下来。 但如果你回去睡觉，狮子就会吃掉你。 有时，当狮子杀死长颈鹿并吃掉它时，人们会站在安全的距离外观看。 他们想要一些肉给自己吃，但是他们太害怕了，不敢靠近。 即使在狮子离开后，人类仍然不敢接近。 因为鬣狗已经搬进来吃剩菜了，而人类不敢和这群爱吵架的人打架。 最后，当所有

the other animals had gone, the humans tiptoed carefully to the carcass to look for scraps… but the only thing left was bare bones. So they shrugged and went off in search of figs. Then one human had a great idea. She took a stone and used it to crack open a bone. Inside, she found the marrow — that's the juicy stuff in the middle of bones. She ate the marrow and thought it was delicious. Other people saw what she had done and copied her. Soon everyone was using stones to crack bones and eat marrow. Humans finally had something that only they knew how to do! Each animal has its own special talents: spiders weave webs and catch flies, bees build hives and produce honey, and woodpeckers extract grubs from tree trunks. Some animals have very weird talents. Take cleaner fish, for example. These small fish follow sharks around, waiting for the sharks to eat. Once a shark has had a little tuna snack, he opens his mouth wide, and all the cleaner fish swim inside to clean up bits of tuna stuck between the shark's teeth. The shark gets free dental care, and the cleaner fish get a good meal. Somehow, sharks recognize the cleaner fish and never eat them by mistake. Now ancient humans also had their special thing: they knew how to use stones to crack open bones so they could eat the marrow

其他动物都走了，人类踮着脚尖小心翼翼地走到尸体旁寻找残羹剩饭，但只剩下了一些光秃秃的骨头。 于是他们耸耸肩，去找无花果了。 然后一个人有了一个好主意。 她拿起一块石头，用它敲开了一块骨头。 在里面，她找到了骨髓——骨头中间多汁的东西。 她吃了骨髓，觉得很好吃。 其他人看到她所做的并模仿她。 很快，每个人都开始用石头来敲碎骨头和吃骨髓。 人类终于有了一件只有他们自己知道怎么做的事！每种动物都有自己的特殊才能：蜘蛛织网捉苍蝇，蜜蜂筑蜂巢酿蜜，啄木鸟从树干上提取蛴螬。 有些动物有非常奇怪的才能。 以清洁鱼为例。 这些小鱼跟着鲨鱼，等着鲨鱼吃。 一旦鲨鱼吃了一点金枪鱼零食，它就会张大嘴巴，所有的清洁鱼都会游进去清理卡在鲨鱼牙齿之间的金枪鱼碎片。 鲨鱼得到了免费的牙齿护理，干净的鱼得到了一顿美餐。 不知何故，鲨鱼认出了干净的鱼，永远不会误食它们。 现在，古代人类也有他们特殊的东西：他们知道如何用石头敲开骨头，这样他们就可以吃骨髓了

inside. Even more important, humans learned that making tools is a good idea. They started using sticks and stones to make all kinds of other tools. Not just for cracking open bones, but for prising oysters off rocks, for digging up wild onions and carrots, and for hunting small animals like lizards and birds. Eventually, humans discovered a tool far more amazing than sticks and stones: they discovered how to use fire! Fire is ferocious and terrifying. When a lion eats a zebra, he's no longer hungry, so he lies down and sleeps. But when a fire eats a tree, it only gets hungrier, and leaps wildly from tree to tree. It can eat an entire forest in a day — leaving nothing but ash. If you try to touch or hold fire to stop it from spreading, it will burn you too. So all animals are scared of fire. They're even more afraid of fire than they are of lions. In fact, even lions are afraid of fire. But some ancient humans started taking an interest in fire. If only they could use it the same way they used sticks and stones… Do you sometimes like to just sit and stare into a fire, watching the flames dance? That's another memory from ancient humans. At first, humans approached fire very cautiously, observing it from a distance. Perhaps they discovered that if lightning set fire to a tree, they could sit round it and enjoy light and warmth. Better still, as long as the tree burned, no dangerous animal dared approach them. COOKS HAVE BIG BRAINS Humans watched fire again and again and came to understand it better. They realized that even though it was wild and ferocious, it did obey some rules. They could befriend it. They pushed a long stick towards a burning tree, and when the tip of the stick caught fire, they pulled it back again. They now had fire on a stick. The fire

在里面。更重要的是，人类学会了制造工具是一个好主意。 他们开始用棍棒和石头制作各种各样的其他工具。 不仅能用来敲开骨头，还能用来撬开岩石上的牡蛎，挖出野生洋葱和胡萝卜，还能用来捕猎蜥蜴和鸟类等小动物。 最终，人类发现了一种比棍棒和石头更神奇的工具：他们发现了如何使用火！火是凶猛而可怕的。 当狮子吃了斑马，他就不再饿了，所以他躺下睡觉。 但当火吃了一棵树，它只会变得更加饥饿，疯狂地从一棵树跳到另一棵树。 它可以在一天内吃掉整个森林，只留下灰烬。 如果你试图触摸或握住火来阻止它蔓延，它也会烧伤你。 所以所有的动物都怕火。 他们甚至比狮子更怕火。 事实上，连狮子都怕火。 但一些古人类开始对火产生兴趣。 如果他们能像使用棍棒和石头那样使用它就好了……你有时喜欢坐在那里盯着火，看着火焰跳舞吗？ 这是远古人类的另一种记忆。 起初，人类非常谨慎地接近火，从远处观察它。 也许他们发现，如果闪电点燃了一棵树，他们可以坐在树旁，享受光和温暖。 更妙的是，只要那棵树还在燃烧，就没有危险的动物敢靠近他们。 厨师的大脑很大人类一次又一次地观察火，并对火有了更好的理解。 他们意识到，尽管它很凶猛，但它确实遵守一些规则。 他们可以帮助它。他们把一根长木棍推到一棵燃烧着的树上，当木棍的尖端着火时，他们又把木棍拉了回来。 他们现在有了火种。 火