2015-02-24

【Aiden in English】

        In our present day life, we would turn on our heating like it was nothing. We go to the grocery store and buy some green beans for dinner without thinking much about it. We would toss a piece of crumbled up paper into the recycling bin and pretend you’re LeBron James shooting from downtown. All these things we do without much of a second thought, but thousands of years ago during the famous Stone Age, these things would’ve been considered the most modern discoveries and ways at the time. In the book The Stone Age News and the articles “Stone Age Recycling” and “Prehistory”, they all talk about the most important and modern discoveries of the Stone Age. In The Stone Age News, the author puts the amazing discoveries at the time into a newspaper, describing each major find in history clearly as they were there. The article “Stone Age Recycling” contains many huge discoveries of recycling long ago. The article “Prehistory” explains the advances in life before events were recorded and written down, or before history. So all the simple, no brainer moves that we all do now were really modern technology thousands of years ago.

        After coming home from work or school during another freezing cold day, most people just turn on their heat and wait for the house to warm up. Yet thousands of years ago, heat was one of the luxuries that not everyone had. Although people back then didn’t have heat, they did have the knowledge about the next best thing. According to the article “Fire” in “Prehistory”, people around a million years ago discovered fire, a very useful heat source. It produced heat almost instantly, and being able to create heat was crucial to human life at the time. With the ability to keep warm, humans could move away from the equator and warmer climates to the colder places. They were able to survive as far north as the Arctic Circle and as far south as the most southern point Cape Horn as South America. Fire also brought along cooked food. With cooked food, people could add flavor to their food. In the “Stone Age News”, the author writes a section about all the different ways food could be cooked with fire. Cooked food also meant fewer germs on meat, and that was a big deal because meat was eaten raw long ago. Now, people have all kinds of ways to cook food, and we have many different ways of using fire to cook food. There’s the usual roasting over a campfire, boiling, frying, and many more.

        Farming is a major source of food, now and thousands of years ago although now, we would simply go to the grocery store for food. If we wished to have broccoli for dinner, drive to the grocery store and buy some broccoli. Same goes for all the other vegetables. Yet thousands of years ago, everyone had to help get food, whether it was hunting or gathering wild berries. In fact, food would probably be one of the major issues of the Stone Age. According to “Prehistory”, farming was discovered by accident. People probably dropped seeds into the ground, and next year, a plant grew in the exact same spot. During the end of the Stone Age, people learned how to use this method to grow their own food. Faming was a major discovery because at that point in history, most people travelled from area to area searching for food. With the ability to produce their own food, people could settle in one place and look into other things. In the Stone Age News, the author talks about the benefits of farming. Without always constantly moving from place to place, some people would be freed to do other occupations. Also, farming produces a surplus of food. In the Stone Age News, the author writes “harvesting a field of grain is hard but rewarding work”. People settled in one place with all the extra food, and humans with special talents were able to focus more on their talents. Nowadays, people have a large portion of their diet from farming. We eat bread, vegetables, and fruit every day to get nutrition. 

        People these days have filling up land fills with trash and junk that could be used again. So recycling is now encouraged to the four corners of the earth to reuse what can be used again. We do this so we are able to keep the environment safe from pollution from littering and landfills. People during the Stone Age were also somewhat recycling, although for different needs. In the text “Stone Age Recycling”, the author writes about discoveries in caves of signs of reusing. Old flint from a battered tool could be mended together with something else. Bone chips left on the ground after crafting a tool could’ve been picked up and used again by someone else. Even though the people thousands of years ago recycled, their purpose was very much different. The humans of the Stone Age reused things to conserve materials and not to get later. They didn’t even think about the environment.

        Thousands of years ago, humans did many things we do now. Although the reasons or importance might be different, their ways of life has a lot of similarities. People used fire to keep warm, farmed for food, and recycled for materials. The Stone Age had a ton of discoveries that built the foundations of civilization today.

【紅霞譯文】

        在現代生活中，隨手打開加熱器沒啥好稀奇的；為打點晚餐而跑趟雜貨店買些青豆回來可謂家常便飯；像勒布朗•詹姆斯那樣三分線外投籃將紙屑扔進回收箱內也算是司空見慣的事情。如果倒退至幾千年前著名的石器時代，上述常規範例肯定被視作特別時髦的創舉。《石器時代新聞》一書和有關“石器時代廢物利用”以及“史前”的文章中都曾涉及到當時重大創新和先進技術，其中《石器時代新聞》作者還把這些豐功偉績編成報紙，以年鑑形式清晰地羅列出來；“石器時代廢物利用” 同樣指出從前回收屢見不鮮，而“史前”則闡述高級生活方式，即使那時活動記錄、文字記載、史書報道尚未成形。由此說來，眼下被我們看似毫無費力的事情其實在幾千年前都非同尋常。

        數九寒天下班或放學回家，多數人都習慣打開空調給屋子供暖。幾千年前，加熱系統尚屬罕見的奢侈品，不是所有人都能享用，雖說當時並沒有像現在這樣的玩藝，但古人早有取熱的概念。據“史前”一文有關“火”的論述，人類早在幾百萬年前就已經發現可以用火來作熱源，火能即刻生熱，而熱對於人類生活意義重大。生存得以保障，人們才有可能從赤道和暖的區域移居到氣候寒冷的地方，上至北極圈，下至南美洲最南端合恩角。當然，火又能用來做飯，熟食的引入增加了風味多樣性。《石器時代新聞》還具體描述不同熟食的燒烤方法，高溫滅菌對於吃慣生肉的古人來說是個不小的變革。今天做飯的方法五花八門，火的用途也不盡相同，常見的就有篝火上烘烤、蒸煮、油炸等等。

        無論過去還是現在，農種一直是食物的主要來源，只不過當今雜貨店提供了所需農貿產品。假如晚飯想吃芥藍，我們可以開車直接到店裡去買，包括其它蔬菜。回顧幾千年前，古人必須自力更生，想吃肉就得打獵，想吃野果就得外出採摘，事實上，食物可謂石器時代生活基本要素之一。“史前”說過，農種純屬偶然，種子被不經意撒到地里，來年又在原處長出植物，石器時代結束的時候，人們已掌握農業種植技能。農種成為當時主要創新，在此之前，多數人為了尋找食物必須長途跋涉，有法子自給自足的民眾才能在一個地方固定下來干起別樣活計。《石器時代新聞》講述農種的優勢，一旦先輩們不再忙於從一個地方遷徙到另外一個地方，就能拿出空閒時間來琢磨其它事情，尤其在口糧尚有富餘的情況下。“一分耕耘一分收穫”，人們欲求安居樂業，首先要解決溫飽問題，然後才好深入挖掘潛力提高生活質量。今天我們吃的東西主要來自農種，大都從麵包、蔬菜和水果中攝取營養。

        近來大量的農耕土地堆滿垃圾廢物，而這些垃圾廢物完全可被回收利用，因此當務之急就是普天下人積極行動起來，確保環境安全，大氣不再污染，垃圾不再亂扔，土地不再浪費，既然回收思想由來已久，不管今昔目的有何不同，我們都應義無返顧。“石器時代廢物利用”就有這樣的描述，山頂洞人刻畫回收圖案，破損工具里老打火石能用其它東西代替，不宜製作器械的骨片下腳料可被拿去派上別的用途，不過前輩這麼做的出發點與現代人的想法完全不同，他們想節省材料，否則事後無處可找，與環保意識毫無關係。

        幾千年前，古人做過許多後人至今繼續堅持的事情，雖然原因或意義各有不同，但在用火取暖、種植農產品和廢物利用方面，彼此的生活方式卻十分相似，祖先諸多創新為我們現代文明打下了堅實基礎。