古DNA證實，人類在發展農業前就擁有狗隻（2/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

Humans Had Dogs Before They Had Farming, Ancient DNA Confirms (2/2)

New research pushes the first genetic evidence of dogs back by 5,000 years and suggests that hunter-gatherer groups may have acquired dogs from one another.

The NTY - By Emily Anthes - Emily Anthes is a science reporter, writing primarily about animal health and science. She also covered the coronavirus pandemic.

March 25, 2026, 12:00 p.m. ET

(continue)

Paleolithic pups

Overall, the researchers found evidence of genetically similar Paleolithic dogs at five different archaeological sites that were associated with people from three different hunter-gatherer cultures: the Magdalenian, Anatolian and Epigravettian peoples.

These are “utterly different cultures,” said Ian Barnes, a paleogeneticist at the Natural History Museum in London and an author of one of the studies. “Presumably linguistically different, completely culturally different, ecologically different, with the same animal. So how does that square up? How does that happen?”

One possibility, the researchers proposed, is that dogs spread through Europe as the Epigravettian culture expanded across the continent roughly 16,000 years ago, and Epigravattian people passed dogs along to other hunter-gatherer populations they encountered.

How these dogs slotted into these societies remains unclear. “What these animals were doing for them, or whether they were just following them, this we don’t really know,” said Laurent Frantz, a paleogeneticist at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and an author of both studies. But given the varied human cultures and environments, it’s possible that these genetically similar dogs were performing different jobs in different human populations.

That means that while humans would later turn dogs into highly specialized tools, optimized to pull sleds or wriggle into badger holes, these Paleolithic dogs might have been more like “a Swiss army knife,” Dr. Larson said. “The dogs might be doing different things, but the dogs themselves are all the same color, same height, same genomic ancestry.”

These hunter-gatherer societies did appear to have close relationships with the dogs, the researchers reported. At some sites, for instance, there was evidence that humans had perhaps provided these early dogs with food and, in death, had treated their bodies like human ones.

“That indicates to us a very, very close interaction,” said William Marsh, a paleogeneticist at the Natural History Museum and an author of one of the studies.

And the legacy of these Paleolithic dogs most likely lives on. When the first farmers began to arrive in Europe — migrating from southwestern Asia roughly 9,000 years ago — they brought their own dogs with them. “There was basically a mixing of all the different dogs from both hunter-gatherer groups and farming groups,” said Pontus Skoglund, a paleogeneticist at the Francis Crick Institute in London who was an author of both studies.

Europe’s farmers thus ended up with dogs that still carried a lot of ancestry from the dogs that had once lived alongside the continent’s hunter-gatherers. Modern European dogs can also probably trace much of their ancestry back to those canines, the researchers said.

Still, the biggest questions surrounding the origins of the dog remain unanswered.

“It’s very exciting that we have this first view of Paleolithic, really early dog ancestry,” Dr. Skoglund said.

“But the question of where dogs come from, and who were these people that domesticated them or started to build this bond,” he added, “we’re still trying to find out.”

Translation

古DNA證實，人類在發展農業前就擁有狗隻（2/2）

一項新研究將最早發現狗基因的證據推前5000年前，並顯示狩獵採集群體可能彼此之間傳播了狗

（繼續）

舊石器時代的幼犬

總體而言，研究人員在五個不同的考古遺址中發現了基因相似的舊石器時代犬類的證據，這些遺址與三種不同的狩獵採集文化有關：馬格德林文化、安納托利亞文化和埃皮格拉維特文化。

倫敦自然歷史博物館的古遺傳學家、研究的作者之一Ian Barnes表示，這些是「截然不同的文化」; 「以常理推測，語言是不同、文化迥異、生態環境也截然不同，卻都養著同一種動物。那麼，這又該如何解釋呢？這究竟是怎麼發生的？」

研究人員提出了一種可能性：大約16,000年前，隨著埃皮格拉維特文化在歐洲大陸的擴張，狗也隨之傳播開來，而埃皮格拉維特人又將狗帶給了他們遇到的其他狩獵採集群體。

這些狗是如何融入這些社會的，目前尚不清楚。慕尼黑路德維希-馬克西米利安大學的古遺傳學家、也是這兩項研究的作者之一Laurent Frantz說道: 「這些動物為他們做了什麼，或者它們只是跟隨他們，我們真的不知道」。但考慮到人類文化和環境的多樣性，這些基因相似的狗在不同的人類群體中可能扮演不同的角色。

Larson博士說這意味著，雖然人類後來將狗改造成高度專業化的工具，使其能夠拉雪橇或鑽進獾洞，但這些舊石器時代的狗可能更像是 “瑞士軍刀” 。 “這些狗可能從事不同的工作，但它們是有相同毛色、相同身高和相同基因組譜。”

研究人員報告稱，這些狩獵採集社會似乎與狗有著密切的關係。例如，在一些遺址中，有證據表明人類可能曾為這些早期犬隻提供食物，並在它們死後像對待人類屍體一樣地對待它們。

自然歷史博物館的古遺傳學家、該研究的作者之一William Marsh說:「這表明人類與狗之間存在非常密切的互動」。

這些舊石器時代狗的遺產很可能延續至今。大約9,000年前，第一批農民從西南亞遷徙到歐洲時，他們也帶了自己的狗。也是這兩項研究的作者之一的倫敦弗朗西斯·克里克研究所的古遺傳學家Pontus Skoglund說道: 「基本上，來自狩獵採集群體和農業群體的各種犬種都混雜在一起」。

因此，歐洲的農民最終擁有的犬隻，仍然保留著許多來自曾經與歐洲大陸狩獵採集者共同生活的犬隻的血統。研究人員表示，現代歐洲犬的祖先很可能也大多可以追溯到這些犬類。

然而，關於犬類起源的最大疑問仍然沒有答案。

Skoglund博士說: 「我們首次得以了解舊石器時代，也就是非常早期的犬類祖先，這令人非常興奮」。

他補充道:“但是，關於犬類的起源，以及馴化它們或開始與它們建立聯繫的人，我們仍在努力尋找答案。”

            So, roughly 14,000 years ago hunter-gatherer societies across Europe had discovered dogs. Recent studies have provided the first definitive genetic evidence that dogs existed during the Paleolithic period, before humans developed agriculture. The researchers have identified Paleolithic dogs at five different archaeological sites in Europe and Western Asia. The oldest of these dogs lived about 15,800 years ago, pushing back the oldest known genetic evidence of dogs by nearly 5,000 years. Apparently, we still do not know where these dogs came from, and who were the people that domesticated them.

古DNA證實，人類在發展農業前就擁有狗隻（1/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

(Source: The NYT)

Humans Had Dogs Before They Had Farming, Ancient DNA Confirms (1/2)

New research pushes the first genetic evidence of dogs back by 5,000 years and suggests that hunter-gatherer groups may have acquired dogs from one another.

The NTY By Emily Anthes - Emily Anthes is a science reporter, writing primarily about animal health and science. She also covered the coronavirus pandemic.

March 25, 2026, 12:00 p.m. ET

In the waning days of the last ice age, when humans were still hunting with spears and using cave walls as canvases, a hot new trend was spreading through the Paleolithic landscape.

By roughly 14,000 years ago, hunter-gatherer societies across Europe had discovered dogs, scientists reported in two new papers, which were published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The studies provide the first definitive genetic evidence that dogs existed during the Paleolithic period, before humans developed agriculture.

The researchers, who used several approaches to analyze DNA extracted from ancient canine specimens, identified Paleolithic dogs at five different archaeological sites in Europe and Western Asia. The oldest of these dogs lived about 15,800 years ago, pushing back the oldest known genetic evidence of dogs by nearly 5,000 years.

These early dogs came from sites that extend from Britain to Turkey, and were associated with several very different hunter-gatherer populations. But the dogs themselves were closely related. Across the five sites, the dogs were more genetically similar than the humans were, the researchers found.

“The people are so different, but the dogs are very much the same,” said Greger Larson, a paleogeneticist at the University of Oxford and one of the authors on both new studies, which were conducted by large, international scientific teams.

The finding suggests that these early human societies were exchanging dogs or acquiring them from one another.

“It is kind of the equivalent of a new blade or a new point or a new kind of material culture or art form or something, where everybody’s getting really excited about having this fun new thing around.” Dr. Larson said. “And it’s useful and it’s interesting and it’s probably cute.”

The research provides new insight into the early history of dogs, as well as the genetic legacy and the interspecies relationship that extends to today.

“It’s really a major step forward in advancing our knowledge of humans and dogs,” said Elaine Ostrander, a canine genomics expert at the National Human Genome Research Institute who was not involved in the research.

Dogs descended from ancient wolves, but exactly when and where they first emerged remains a subject of intense scientific debate. Some scientists have suggested that the size and shape of ancient canine specimens indicate that dogs and wolves diverged more than 30,000 years ago.

But such remains can be tricky to identify definitively. In some cases, geneticists have determined that canine remains that initially appeared to be from dogs actually belonged to now-extinct wolves. In others, they haven’t been able to recover enough DNA to make a conclusive call about species. Before the new research, the oldest definitive dog DNA dated back just 10,900 years.

In one of the new studies, scientists assembled and analyzed the complete genomes of eight ancient canines and compared them with ancient and modern wolves and dogs. Six of the animals had genomes that resembled those of dogs, they concluded. And two of those dogs dated back to the Paleolithic era — a 15,800-year-old dog from Pinarbasi, Turkey, and a 14,300-year-old dog from Gough’s Cave, an archaeological site in Britain.

The genomes from those two Paleolithic dogs became “the Rosetta Stone, for lack of a better term, that then unlocked all of the stuff that we already had in our database,” said Lachie Scarsbrook, a paleogeneticist at the University of Oxford and an author of one of the studies.

That database had three other ancient canines, their species unknown. The genetic data on these animals was incomplete: Scientists had previously sequenced only the DNA from their mitochondria, representing a small fraction of their total genetic material. (A vast majority of an animal’s DNA is stored in the cell nucleus.)

But the mitochondrial DNA from these three unknown canines was so similar to the mitochondrial DNA from the British and Turkish dogs that the scientists concluded that these animals were probably Paleolithic dogs, too. They were 14,000 to 14,300 years old and came from sites in Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

In the second paper, scientists used a different approach to extract and analyze DNA from more than 200 ancient canine remains, including samples from the same site in Switzerland. They analyzed nuclear DNA from the same canine that the first team had identified as being a Paleolithic dog and reached the same conclusion.

(to be continued)

Translation

古DNA證實，人類在發展農業前就擁有狗隻（1/2）

一項新研究將最早發現狗基因的證據推前5000年前，並顯示狩獵採集群體可能彼此之間傳播了狗。

在上一個冰河時期的末期，當人類還在用長矛狩獵，並在洞穴牆上作畫時，一種新的潮流正在舊石器時代蔓延開來。

科學家在周三發表於《自然》雜誌的兩篇新論文中報告說，大約在14,000年前，歐洲各地的狩獵採集社會已經發現了狗。這些研究首次提供了確鑿的基因證據，證明狗在舊石器時代就已經存在，早於人類發展農業。

研究人員運用多種方法分析了從古代犬類標本中提取的DNA，在歐洲和西亞的五個不同考古遺址中發現了舊石器時代的犬類。其中最古老的犬類生活在約15,800年前，將已知最早的犬類基因證據向前推前了近5,000年。

這些早期犬類來自從英國到土耳其的多個遺址，並與幾個截然不同的狩獵採集群體有關。但這些犬類本身卻有著密切的親緣關係。研究人員發現，在這五個遺址中，犬類的基因相似度甚至高於人類。

牛津大學古遺傳學家Greger Larson說:「人類如此不同，但犬類卻非常相似」。他是這兩項新研究的作者之一，這兩項研究均由大型國際科學研究團隊完成。

研究結果顯示，這些早期人類社會可能在交換狗隻，或是從彼此之間獲得狗隻。

Larson博士說: “這有點像是一種新的刀刃、新的尖端、新的物質文化或藝術形式之類的東西，大家都對這種有趣的新事物感到興奮不已” ， “它既實用又有趣，而且可能還很可愛。”

這項研究為我們了解狗隻的早期歷史、遺傳傳承以及延續至今的跨物種關係提供了新的視角。

並未參與這項研究的美國國家人類基因組研究所的犬類基因組學專家Elaine Ostrander說道:「這確實是增進我們對人類和狗的了解的一大進步」。

狗起源於古代狼，但它們究竟何時何地出現仍然是科學界激烈爭論的話題。一些科學家認為，古代犬類標本的大小和形狀表明，狗和狼在3萬多年前就已經分道揚鑣。

但要準確鑑定這些遺骸並非易事。在某些情況下，遺傳學家已經確定，最初看似屬於狗的犬科動物遺骸實際上屬於現已滅絕的狼。而在其他情況下，他們未能提取到足夠的DNA來對物種做出最終判斷。在這項新研究之前，已知最古老的犬類DNA可以追溯到10,900年前。

在其中一項新研究中，科學家收集並分析了八種古代犬科動物的完整基因組，並將其與古代和現代的狼和狗的基因組進行了比較。他們得出結論，其中六種動物的基因組與狗的基因組相似。而這六種狗中有兩種可以追溯到舊石器時代 - 一種是來自土耳其Pinarbasi的距今15,800年的狗，另一種是來自英國高夫洞穴（Gough's Cave）考古遺址的距今14,300年的狗。

牛津大學古遺傳學家、其中一項研究的作者Lachie Scarsbrook表示，這兩隻舊石器時代犬的基因組，在沒有更好的名稱之下 ，“ 就稱之為‘羅塞塔石碑’，它解開了我們數據庫中已有的所有謎團”。

該資料庫中還包含另外三隻古代犬科動物，它們的物種尚不明確。這些動物的基因數據並不完整：科學家先前僅對它們的粒線體DNA進行了定序，而粒線體DNA僅佔其全部遺傳物質的一小部分。 （動物的大部分DNA都儲存在細胞核中。）

但這三隻未知犬科動物的粒線體DNA與英國和土耳其犬的粒線體DNA高度相似，因此科學家們得出結論，這些動物很可能也是舊石器時代的犬類。它們的年代是在14,000至14,300年前，來自德國、義大利和瑞士的遺址。

在第二篇論文中，科學家採用了不同的方法，從200多份古代犬類遺骸中提取並分析了DNA，其中包括來自瑞士同一遺址的樣本。他們分析了與第一組研究人員鑑定為舊石器時代犬類的同一隻犬的核DNA，並得出了相同的結論。

（待續）

Note:

1. The Rosetta Stone (羅塞塔石碑) is a stele of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt, on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts, respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. The decree has only minor differences across the three versions, making the Rosetta Stone key to deciphering the Egyptian scripts. (Wikipedia)

US clinical trial to transplant pig kidney into patient; kidney functions for up to 270 days

Recently NHK News on-line reported the following:

米 ブタの腎臓を患者に移植する治験 腎臓は最長で270日余機能

2026年2月15日午後10時49分

医療・健康

アメリカの病院などが進めている、ブタの腎臓を患者に移植する治験に携わる日本人医師が15日、都内で最新の経過を発表し、移植した腎臓は最も長い患者で270日余り機能したと報告しました。

これは15日、東京 千代田区で開かれたシンポジウムで、アメリカ・マサチューセッツ総合病院の河合達郎医師が発表しました。

シンポジウムで河合医師は、重い腎不全の患者にブタの腎臓を移植する手術をこれまで4人に行い、移植した腎臓は、最も長い患者で271日間機能して透析が必要ない状態だったと報告しました。

この患者はその後腎臓のドナーが見つかり、移植を受けて回復したということです。

また、ほかの3人のうち、1人は別の病気で死亡し、残りの2人は今も移植したブタの腎臓が機能しているということで、河合医師らは今後も手術を行いアメリカでの承認を目指すとしています。

動物の臓器などを治療のために移植する「異種移植」をめぐっては、ドナーの不足を背景に、国内でもブタの腎臓を移植する治験の準備を進める動きが出ています。

シンポジウムでは国立成育医療研究センターの神里彩子部長らが異種移植への理解について国内の3200人余りにアンケートした結果も報告され、全体の52.9％が異種移植を知らず、勧められた場合抵抗感があるとする回答も77％に上ったと紹介されました。

河合医師は、「日本ではドナーが圧倒的に足りず、移植を諦めている人が多い。われわれの治験の結果も参考にしてもらい、国内での実施について議論してほしい」と話していました。

Translation

US clinical trial to transplant pig kidney into patient; kidney functions for up to 270 days

February 15, 2026, 10:49 PM

Medicine & Health

A Japanese doctor involved in a clinical trial of pig kidney transplants into patients, currently being conducted at American hospitals, gave an update on the progress in Tokyo on the 15th, reporting that the transplanted kidney had functioned for over 270 days in the longest-lasting patient.

This was announced on the 15th at a symposium held in Chiyoda Ward of Tokyo by Dr. Tatsuro Kawai (河合達郎) from the Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States.

At the symposium, Dr. Kawai reported that he had performed pig kidney transplants on four patients with severe kidney failure, and that the transplanted kidney functioned for 271 days in this longest-lasting patient without the need for dialysis.

This patient subsequently found a kidney donor, received a transplant and recovered.

Of the other three patients, while one died of a different illness, for the remaining two, the transplanted pig kidney was still functioning, so Dr. Kawai and his colleagues planned to continue performing surgeries and seek approval in the United States.

Regarding xenotransplantation, the transplantation of animal organs for medical treatment, a shortage of donors had led to movements in Japan to prepare clinical trials for pig kidney transplants.

At the symposium, Director Ayako Kamisato (神里彩子) of the National Center for Child Health and Development and her colleagues reported the results of a survey of over 3,200 people in Japan regarding their understanding of xenotransplantation which found out that 52.9% of respondents were unaware of xenotransplantation, and 77% would be hesitant if it were offered to them.

Dr. Kawai said, "There is an overwhelming shortage of donors in Japan, and many people give up transplanting. I would like the results of our clinical trial to be used as a reference in discussing doing transplantation in Japan."

So, a Japanese doctor involved in a clinical trial of transplanting pig kidney into patients in the US gives an update on the progress and reports that in the longest-lasting patient, the transplanted kidney has functioned for over 270 days. I think this is an impressive medical record.

新研究洗脫了是那個女人導致王朝覆滅的罪名（2/2）

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

New Research Absolves the Woman Blamed for a Dynasty’s Ruin (2/2)

A Chinese king’s infatuation with a woman was seen as the reason that a golden age collapsed. Evidence suggests climate change and internal strife played bigger roles.

By Andrew Higgins - Reporting from Hejia Village and Xi’an in Shaanxi Province, China

Feb. 14, 2026

Updated 4:05 a.m. ET

(continue)

Professor Shaughnessy said he had long believed that climactic events before Western Zhou collapsed “probably contributed to the fall, but there were many other reasons for it as well.”

Volcanoes spew out aerosol particles that cut sunlight and can play havoc with farming thousands of miles away. Whether an eruption “tips a dynasty over the edge,” however, depends heavily on the extent at the time of warfare and instability, Mr. Ludlow said.

“Our most interesting finding,” he said, “is not that volcanoes are implicated in dynastic change but that the impact of climatic shock depends on how stable a society was in the lead up to that shock.”

Mr. Chong, the archaeology institute director, also said that Western Zhou’s own “internal and external contradictions” were key to its downfall.

These included a steady weakening of the royal court’s control over regional rulers as ties of blood to the center were diluted by time, and also a growing conflict with rival “barbarian” powers to the northwest and southeast.

For centuries, Chinese scholars have struggled to square the Western Zhou’s sudden collapse with the glowing praise heaped upon it by Confucius. “If the Western Zhou dynasty was so perfect an age of good politics and institutions as Confucius tended to suggest, then why had it to fall, and to give rise to a time of political disorder and moral decline?” asked Li Feng, a professor of early Chinese history at Columbia University, in a 2006 book.

Yan Yongqian, a young archaeologist who is part of a team now digging up what is believed to be a side gate to the Western Zhou capital, said the excavation work had revealed evidence of the dynasty’s highly stratified and sophisticated society, as well as its darker side, including human sacrifices.

The collapse of the Western Zhou, Mr. Yan said, seems to have happened quickly, accelerated by military attack from outside against defenses weakened by internal discord. An earlier round of excavation uncovered the remains of burned ancient buildings, suggesting a violent end.

“The fall of this state was likely a very sudden event,” Mr. Yan said. Whether Bao Si, the beautiful consort, who, according to ancient legend, was conceived from dragon spittle, existed is unclear and even if she did, he added, “a single person cannot destroy a dynasty.”

Since Sima Qian wrote “Historical Records,” each new Chinese dynasty has traditionally commissioned an official history of its predecessor, enumerating supposed moral and other failings that led to its demise.

Though widely dismissed by modern scholars as fairy tales, stories about the Western Zhou king’s dynasty-destroying infatuation with Bao Si still sometimes crowd out other explanations. At a museum near the excavation site showcasing Western Zhou’s cultural achievements and its sudden demise, exhibits recount how the king grappled with natural disasters and other problems but lost power largely because of his wayward love life.

To entertain Bao Si, who was famous for her great but unsmiling beauty, the story goes, he lit beacon fires that were supposed to be used to summon help in times of emergency, a stunt that cost him his life and kingdom when a real attack came in 771 B.C.

Whether such beacons even existed, however, is disputed and Mr. Yan, the archaeologist, said the story had probably been fabricated to demonize Bao Si and cover up the dynasty’s real problems.

Mr. Chong, the Shaanxi province archaeology institute director, said: “When things go wrong you have to find someone to take responsibility,” and, in China’s patriarchal society, that person “is always a woman.” He added, “The real collapse of a society is caused by the system and its mechanisms.”

Translation

新研究洗脫了是那個女人導致王朝覆滅的罪名（2/2）

一位中國君王對一位女子的迷戀曾被認為是導致王朝鼎盛時期終結的原因。但有證據表明，氣候變遷和內部紛爭才是更重要的因素。

（繼續）

Shaughnessy教授表示，他一直認為西周滅亡前的氣候事件「可能促成了王朝的覆滅，但還有許多其他原因」。

火山爆發會噴出氣溶膠粒子，阻擋陽光，可能對數千英里外的農業造成嚴重破壞。Ludlow先生表示，火山爆發是否“足以壓垮一個王朝”，很大程度上取決於當時戰爭和動盪的程度。

他說:“我們最有趣的發現並非火山活動與王朝更迭有關，而是氣候衝擊的影響取決於社會在衝擊發生前的穩定性。”

考古研究所所長Chong先生也表示，西周自身的「內外矛盾」是其滅亡的關鍵。

這些矛盾包括：隨著血緣關係的淡化，皇室對地方統治者的控制力逐漸減弱；以及與西北和東南方的「蠻夷」勢力日益加劇的衝突。

幾個世紀以來，中國學者一直試圖拆解西周的突然滅亡與孔子對其極力讚揚的矛盾。 哥倫比亞大學早期中國歷史教授Li Feng在2006年出版的一本書中提出了這個問題:「如果西周真如孔子所言，是一個政治和制度都臻於完美的時代，那麼它為何會滅亡，並導致政治混亂和道德淪喪的局面呢？」

年輕的考古學家Yan Yongqian是目前正在挖掘相信是西周首都側門一處遺址的考古學家成員之一。他表示，挖掘工作揭示了西周社會高度分層且複雜的一面，同時也暴露了其陰暗面，例如人祭。

Yan說，西周的滅亡似乎發生得很快，外部軍事進攻加速了這一進程，而內部紛爭削弱了其防禦。先前的一輪挖掘工作發現了被焚毀的古代建築遺跡，顯示西周的滅亡是一場暴力事件。

Yan說: 「這個國家的滅亡很可能是一場非常突然的事件」。至於傳說中由龍唾液孕育而成的絕世美人褒姒是否真實存在，尚不清楚。即使褒姒存在，Yan補充道: “一個人不可能摧毀一個王朝。”

自從司馬遷寫《史記》以來，每個新的中國王朝都會按慣例委託編纂前朝的官方史書，列舉前朝的種種道德敗壞和其他導致其滅亡的罪狀。

儘管現代學者普遍認為西周王與褒姒的戀情是無稽之談，但這些故事至今仍佔據主導地位，有時甚至蓋過了其他解釋。在西周遺址附近的一座博物館裡，展出了西周的文化成就及其突然滅亡的原因，其中也講述了西周王如何應對自然災害和其他問題，最終卻因其放蕩不羈的愛情生活而失去權力。

據說，為了取悅以絕世美貌著稱卻不苟言笑的褒姒，西周王點燃了原本用於在緊急情況下求援的烽火台。西元前771年，一場真正的戰爭爆發，西周王的這一舉動最終讓他付出了生命的代價，並失去了王國。

然而，這些烽火台是否真的存在尚存爭議。考古學家Yan先生表示，這個故事很可能是為了妖魔化褒姒、掩蓋其王朝的真正問題而編造的。

陝西省考古研究所所長Chong先生說：「出了問題，總得有人承擔責任」。在中國的父權社會裡，這個人”總是女性”。他還補充說：「一個社會的真正崩潰是由其制度及其運作機制所造成的」。

              So, new researches suggest that the collapse of the Western Zhou seems to have happened quickly, accelerated by military attack from outside and weakened defenses due to internal discord. This suggestion has a wider implication in that conclusions made by previous historians in medieval China in explaining causes of a dynasty change etc. might not be as trustworthy as has been previously thought. Their conclusions might have been clouded by moral judgment held by Chinese scholars who wrote history privately or officially. Probably, their level of logical thinking was not as sophisticated as their counterparts in modern time, apparently after the arrival of Western learning in China.  Education received by scholars in those days focused more of literature learning and memorization rather than logical thinking. Also, modern historians have the benefit in getting more archeological tools to help understand historical events from different perspectives.

Note:

1. An aerosol 氣溶膠is a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in air or another gas. Aerosols can be generated from natural or human causes. The scientific term aerosol refers to the mixture of particulates in gas, and not to the particulate matter alone. The liquid or solid particles in an aerosol have diameters typically less than 1 μm. (Wikipedia)

4億年前陸地上最大的生物體，科學家至今無法解釋

Recently CNN.com reported the following:

The largest life-form on land 400 million years ago was one that scientists can’t explain

CNN - By Katie Hunt

Updated Feb 5, 2026

Some 400 million years ago, long before dinosaurs or even trees had evolved, an enigmatic organism towered over the landscape like a prehistoric monolith.

Now, new research makes the case that the ancient life form is not a plant, animal or fungi and instead may be a completely unknown form of multicellular life.

“What we can say, based on all of those new analyses, is that it’s so different from any modern group we have,” said Corentin Loron, a palaeontologist at Edinburgh University and a co-lead author of the research, which published in the journal Science Advances last month.

First identified 160 years ago, the fossils — known as Prototaxites — measure up to 30 feet (around 9 meters) tall and have long defied easy classification.

In the 19th century, scientists initially thought Prototaxites was the rotten trunk of a conifer. Subsequent study, however, revealed it was composed of interwoven tubes, rather than the block-like cells that make up plant tissue.

Other scientists argued that it was a lichen-like mass, a symbiotic association between a fungus and algae. In recent years, some researchers thought the organism more closely resembled a fungus, in part because it didn’t appear to produce energy through photosynthesis.

The new research focused on three Prototaxites fossils unearthed in the Rhynie chert, a prehistoric land ecosystem near Aberdeen, Scotland. The Rhynie chert is home to the best-preserved examples of the earliest plants, fungi and fauna that colonized land 400 million years ago, during a period known as the early Devonian. The site was once an ancient hot spring like Yellowstone.

The exceptional preservation of the fossils embedded in the rock at the Rhynie chert allows scientists, with the right tools, to detect the chemical signatures of long-vanished molecules, known as fossilization products.

“We are able to still have signatures that inform us about the original composition of those fossils, meaning it’s not overcooked, it’s not overly transformed by the geology,” Loron explained.

Unanswered questions

The new analysis by Loron and his colleagues suggests that the biomarkers in Prototaxites fossils were chemically distinct from those of fossilized fungi found at the site and preserved in similar conditions. Fungi fossils preserved in the chert contained compounds from the breakdown of chitin and glucan, key structural molecules in fungi. Prototaxites, however, lacked these biomarkers.

“If Prototaxites was fungi, we would have expected it to follow the same trend as the fungi because they are next to each other in the same burial conditions,” Loron said.

Other structural features — such as a complex branching pattern within dark spherical spots in the fossil that could have carried out a gas, nutrient, water, or served another exchange function — were distinct from all known fungi, whether living or extinct, the researchers noted in the study. Based on these results, it is too early to shoehorn Prototaxites into a specific category, according to the team.

Different species of Prototaxites might have varied in size, but the largest would have really towered over the landscape at a time when plants were less than 1 meter tall, said Kevin Boyce, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Stanford University. His work on Prototaxites fossils has shown that the ancient organisms didn’t use photosynthesis to produce energy from light like plants, but likely consumed carbon sources in the environment — just as some living fungi live off decomposing organic matter.

“People have compared it to specific fungi or algae in the past, and they were doing their best with the information they had at the time, but we now have a much better handle on the overall tree of life and Prototaxites is too old for those comparisons to be valid,” Boyce, who wasn’t involved in the study, said in an email.

“You can compare it to mushrooms, but mushrooms just aren’t that old,” he added. “That doesn’t mean Prototaxites is or isn’t a fungus (or anything else), just that its form would have evolved independently from the mushrooms and other complex multicellular examples amongst fungi that we have now.”

Marc-André Selosse, a professor at the Natural History Museum in Paris, said the authors of the new study conducted “wonderful analyses” but noted the research only examined one of 25 known species of Prototaxites. Selosse, who also didn’t take part in the work, said he thought it was still possible that the organism functioned in a lichen-like way.

“The sampling is not encompassing the diversity of Prototaxites species,” Selosse said. “So for me, it doesn’t make it as a finished story.”

Loron said there is still much that is unknown about Prototaxites. For example, it’s not clear how Prototaxites were anchored to the ground or whether the organism, which is thought to have grown slowly, was upright for its whole lifespan. His team is planning follow-up studies on fossilized tubular organisms similar to Prototaxites to further the research.

“Sometimes it’s scary to not know what something is, but it’s also scientifically exciting,” Loron said.

Translation

4億年前陸地上最大的生物體，科學家至今無法解釋

大約4億年前，遠在恐龍甚至樹木出現之前，一種神秘的生物體如同史前巨石般聳立於大地之上。

如今，一項新的研究表明，這種古代生物體並非植物、動物或真菌，可能是一種完全未知的多細胞生物。

愛丁堡大學古生物學家、該研究的共同第一作者Corentin Loron說道:「基於所有這些新的分析，我們可以說，它與我們已知的任何現代生物類群都截然不同」。這項研究已於上月發表在《科學進展》（Science Advances）雜誌上。

這些化石－被稱為原杉菌（Prototaxites）- 在160年前首次被發現，它們高達30英尺（約9公尺），長期以來一直難以被歸類。

19世紀，科學家最初認為原杉菌（Prototaxites）是針葉樹腐爛的樹幹。然而，隨後的研究表明，它是由交織的管子組成，而不是構成植物組織的塊狀細胞。

另一些科學家則認為它是一種類似地衣的團塊，是真菌和藻類之間的共生體。近年來，一些研究人員認為這種生物更接近真菌，部分原因是它似乎不會透過光合作用產生能量。

這項新研究聚焦於蘇格蘭Aberdeen附近, 稱為瑞尼燧石層（Rhynie chert）的近史前陸地生態系中出土的三塊原杉菌化石。瑞尼燧石層保存著4億年前稱為Devonian（泥盆紀）最早期興盛的植物、真菌和動物群的最佳化石標本。該遺址曾像黃石公園一樣，是個古老的溫泉。

瑞尼燧石層中化石保存得異常完好，這使得科學家能夠借助合適的工具，探測到早已消失的分子（即化石化產物）的化學特徵。

Loron解釋道: 「我們仍然能夠獲得這些特徵，它們可以告訴我們這些化石的原始成分，這意味著它們沒有被過度熱化，也沒有被地質作用過度改變」。

未解之謎

Loron及其同事的最新分析表明，原杉菌化石中的生物標記與在同一地點發現的、保存條件相似的真菌化石的生物標記在化學成分上截然不同。保存在燧石中的真菌化石含有甲殼質和葡聚糖分解產生的化合物，而甲殼質和葡聚糖是真菌的關鍵結構分子。然而，原杉菌化石卻缺乏這些生物標記。

Loron說: 「如果原杉菌是真菌，我們原本預期它會與真菌的生物標記呈現相同的趨勢，因為它們彼此相鄰，且處於相同的埋藏條件下」。

研究人員在研究中指出，其他結構特徵 - 例如化石中深色球狀斑點內複雜的枝狀結構，這些結構可能負責氣體、營養物質、水分的輸送，或發揮其他交換功能 - 與所有已知的真菌（無論現存或已滅絕）都截然不同。研究團隊認為，基於這些結果，現在就將原杉菌（Prototaxites）歸入某個特定類別還為時過早。

史丹佛大學地球與行星科學教授Kevin Boyce表示，不同種類的原杉菌體型可能有所差異，但最大的原杉菌出現在一般植物高度不足1米的時代，無疑會成為地貌上的龐然大物。他對原杉菌化石造出的研究表明，這些遠古生物不像植物那樣利用光合作用從光中獲取能量，而是可能像某些現存真菌以分解有機物為生一樣，從環境中吸收碳源為生。

並未參與這項研究的Boyce 在一封電子郵件中寫道:「過去人們曾將它與特定的真菌或藻類進行比較，他們當時也只是盡力利用已有的信息進行分析。但現在我們對整個生命之樹有了更深入的了解，而原杉菌的出現時間太早了，當時的比較已經不再有效了」。

他補充道:“你可以把它和蘑菇比較，但蘑菇的出現時間並沒有那麼早”，“這並不意味著原杉菌是或不是真菌（或其他任何生物），只是說它們與我們現在所知的蘑菇和其他複雜的多細胞真菌是獨立地去演化的產物。”

巴黎自然歷史博物館的教授Marc-André Selosse表示，這項新研究的作者進行了“精彩的分析”，但他指出，這項研究只考察了已知的25種原杉菌中的一種。Selosse也未參與這項研究，但他表示，他認為這種生物體仍然有可能以類似地衣的方式運作。

Selosse說: “目前的採樣並未涵蓋原杉菌物種的全部” ， “所以對我來說，這還不足以說已寫出了一個完整的故事。”

Loron表示，關於原杉菌，我們仍然有很多未知之處。例如，目前尚不清楚原杉菌是如何固定在地面上的，也不清楚這種被認為生長緩慢的生物是否終生保持直立。他的團隊計劃對與原杉菌類似的管狀化石生物進行後續研究，以推進相關調查。

Loron說: 「有時候，不知道某些東西是什麼會讓人感到害怕，但從科學角度來說，這也令人興奮的」。

So, some 400 million years ago, long before dinosaurs or even trees had evolved, an enigmatic organism called Prototaxites towered over the landscape like a prehistoric monolith. Now, new research makes the case that this ancient life form is not a plant, animal or fungi and instead may be a completely unknown form of multicellular life. There is still much that is unknown about Prototaxites. Apparently, further the research is needed in order to know more about this organism.

Note:

1.Prototaxites (原杉菌) is an extinct genus of large macroscopic eukaryote dating from the Late Silurian until the Late Devonian periods. Prototaxites formed large trunk-like structures up to 1 metre (3 ft) wide, reaching 8 metres (26 ft) in height, made up of tiny interwoven tubules around 50 micrometres (0.0020 in) in diameter, making it by far the largest land-dwelling organism of its time. The taxonomy of Prototaxites has long been the subject of debate. (Wikipedia)

2. Rhynie chert (瑞尼燧石層) refers to a type of fossil-rich silica rock that originates from the Early Devonian period. It is significant in paleontology for preserving some of the oldest known land plants and their associated organisms. (ChatGPT)

3. The Devonian (泥盆紀) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era during the Phanerozoic eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian period at 419.62 million years ago, to the beginning of the succeeding Carboniferous period. It is named after Devon, South West England, where rocks from this period were first studied. (Wikipedia)

43萬年前的木製工具是迄今為止發現的最古老工具

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

430,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools Are the Oldest Ever Found

The finding, along with the discovery of a 500,000-year-old hammer made of bone, indicates that our human ancestors were making tools even earlier than archaeologists thought.

The NYT - By Franz Lidz

Jan. 26, 2026

Early hominins in Europe were creating tools from raw materials hundreds of thousands of years before Homo sapiens arrived there, two new studies indicate, pushing back the established time for such activity. The evidence includes a 500,000-year-old hammer made of elephant or mammoth bone, excavated in southern England, and 430,000-year-old wooden tools found in southern Greece — the earliest wooden tools on record.

The findings suggest that early humans possessed sophisticated technological skills, the researchers said. Katerina Harvati, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Tübingen in Germany and a lead author of the wooden-tool paper, which was published on Monday in the journal PNAS, said the discoveries provided insight into the prehistoric origins of human intelligence.

Silvia Bello, a paleoanthropologist at London’s Natural History Museum and an author on the elephant-bone study, which was published last week in Science Advances, concurred.

The artifacts in both studies, recovered from coal-mine sites, were probably produced by early Neanderthals or a preceding species, Homo heidelbergensis. Homo sapiens emerged in Africa more than 300,000 years ago, and the oldest evidence of them in Europe is a 210,000-year-old fossil unearthed in Greece. By the time Homo sapiens established themselves in Britain 40,000 years ago, other hominins had already lived there for nearly a million years.

Sticks and stones

Because archaeology is in a perpetual state of rewriting its own history, the oldest record of any development is often temporary. The oldest known evidence of early humans intentionally crafting wood for structural purposes was found in 2019 at Kalambo Falls in Zambia and dates back 476,000 years. It consists of two carved, interlocking bushwillow logs that seem to have formed part of a dwelling or platform. “Organic artifacts, especially those derived from plants, are a lot more fragile and harder to find than those made from stone,” Dr. Havarti said.

The relics in the new wooden-tools paper were excavated from a deep layer at the Marathousa 1 site, a former lakeshore mine in the Megalopolis basin in Greece. They date back to the Middle Pleistocene age, which lasted from roughly 478,000 to 424,000 years ago. At the site, archaeologists discovered the partial skeleton of a straight-tusked elephant; the remains of turtles, birds, rodents and hippopotamuses; and stone tools used for butchering. Among the dozens of wood fragments embedded in the debris, two — a worked alder shard for digging and a carved poplar or willow twig — had been used as tools.

“We found marks from chopping and carving on both objects, clear signs that humans had shaped them,” said Annemieke Milks, an archaeologist at the University of Reading in England and a lead author of the study, who conducted microscopic analysis and CT scans of the items.

The digging stick was found among the elephant bones. Might it have been used to chop and carve meat from the carrion?

“I’ve never tried to cut up an elephant carcass, so I don’t know,” Dr. Havarti said. “I assume it’s not so easy, but I mean, I guess it’s possible.”

Elephantine tools

There is no older or more comprehensive assemblage of carved, sharpened elephant-bone tools than the collection uncovered over the last decade in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, which dates back 1.5 million years. Previously, European elephant-bone tools were thought to be limited to the warmer south and to have appeared within the last 450,000 years. But a hammer made of elephant or mammoth bone, discovered at the Boxgrove site in West Sussex in England during the 1990s and only recently identified, overturns that assumption.

The setting is rich in flint, bone and antler fossils, but this was the first tool of elephantine bone discovered there. Deformities on its surface indicate that it was created and used while fresh, leaving researchers to speculate on whether the ancient elephant was hunted or scavenged.

Dr. Bello said the tool, four inches long and triangular, was used for knapping, the process of breaking off flakes from a stone to create tools like hand axes. Researchers found distinctive notches and marks on the bone fragment. “The hammer has been struck against stone, repeatedly,” Dr. Bello said. “The small pieces of flint found embedded in the bone confirm that it was used for this specialized purpose.”

Citing the maxim that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, Dr. Bello suggested that the apparent scarcity of early tools resulted from poor preservation or difficulties in identification. Thomas Terberger, an expert in ancient artifact analysis at the Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage in Hannover, Germany, agreed. “Further proof may be found in as-yet undiscovered sites or existing museum collections,” he said.

Dr. Terberger noted that the new studies highlighted the diversity of raw materials that prehistoric people used for toolmaking. “Flint was more common, but bone and wood were probably more valuable for our ancient ancestors,” he said. “Imagine how many tools you can make from a single large bone of an elephant.”

Translation

43萬年前的木製工具是迄今為止發現的最古老工具

這項發現，連同先前發現的一把50萬年前的骨錘，顯示我們人類的祖先製造工具的時間比考古學家之前認為的還要早。

兩項新的研究表明，歐洲早期人類在智人到達歐洲之前數十萬年就已經開始利用原材料製造工具，這推翻了先前關於早期人類製造工具活動的既定時間。證據包括在英格蘭南部出土的一把50萬年前的象骨或猛獁象骨錘，以及在希臘南部發現的43萬年前的木製工具 - 這是迄今為止記錄在案的最早的木製工具。

研究人員表示，這些發現顯示早期人類擁有精湛的技術。德國圖賓根大學的古人類學家Katerina Harvati是在星期一在《美國國家科學院院刊》（PNAS）發的木製工具論文的主要作者之一。她表示，這些發現為了解人類智力的史前起源提供了新的視角。

倫敦自然史博物館的古人類學家Silvia Bello也同意這一點。她也是上週發表在《科學進展》（Science Advances）上的象骨研究的作者之一。

這兩項研究中的文物均出土於煤礦遺址，很可能是由早期尼安德特人或其更早的物種－海德堡人（Homo heidelbergensis）製造的。智人（Homo sapiens）於30多萬年前在非洲出現，而歐洲最古老的智人證據是一塊在希臘出土的、距今21萬年的化石。當智人在4萬年前定居英國時，其他人屬物種已經在那裡生活了近百萬年。

木棍與石頭

由於考古學處於不斷改寫自身歷史的狀態，任何發展最古老的記錄往往都是暫時的。已知最早的人類有意製作木材用於建築用途的證據於2019年在Zambia的Kalambo瀑布被發現，距今已有47. 6萬年歷史。它由兩根雕刻過的、交錯的柳條組成，似乎曾經是住所或平台的一部分。Havarti博士說: 「有機物，尤其是植物製品，比石製品脆弱得多和更難找到」。

這篇關於木製工具的新論文中的文物是從希臘Megalopolis盆地Marathousa 1號遺址的深層地層中挖掘出來的，該遺址曾是一處湖岸礦場。這些文物可以追溯到中更新世時期，大約從47.8萬年前到42.4萬年前。在遺址中，考古學家發現了部分直齒象的骨骼；龜、鳥、囓齒動物和河馬的遺骸；以及用於屠宰的石器。在散落在廢墟中的數十塊木片中，有兩塊曾被用作工具 - 一塊是用於挖掘的加工過的榿木碎片，另一塊是雕刻過的白楊或柳樹枝。

英國雷丁大學的考古學家Annemieke Milks說:「我們在這兩件物品上都發現了砍伐和雕刻的痕跡，這清楚地表明它們曾被人類加工過」。她是這項研究的主要作者之一，負責對這些物品進行顯微分析和CT掃描。

挖掘棒是在象骨堆中發現的。它是否曾被用來從死肉上剁肉剔骨？

Havarti博士說: 「我從未嘗試過切割象屍，所以我不清楚」; 「我猜這並不容易，但我的意思是，我想這並非不可能」。

象骨工具

 在過去十年間於坦尚尼亞Olduvai峽谷發現的象骨雕刻工具堆，是迄今為止發現的最古老、最全面的有雕刻、被磨尖的象骨工具，其歷史可追溯至150萬年前。此前，人們認為歐洲的象骨工具僅限出現於氣候溫暖的南方地區，且在距今45萬年之內。然而，1990年代在英國西薩塞克斯郡Boxgrove遺址發現，直到最近才被鑑定的一件由象骨或猛獁象骨造成的錘，顛覆了這個認知。

該遺址富含燧石、骨骼和鹿角化石，但這件象骨錘是首次在此發現。錘體表面的變形表明它是在新鮮狀態下製成和使用的，這讓研究人員不禁推測，這頭古代大像是被獵殺還是被拾荒得來的。

Bello博士說，這件長約四吋、呈三角形的工具用於分割敲打，也就是從石頭上敲下薄片來製作手斧等工具的過程。研究人員在骨片上發現了獨特的凹槽和痕跡。Bello博士說: “這把錘子曾反覆敲擊石頭” ， “骨頭裡嵌著的小塊燧石證實了它曾被用於這種特殊用途。”

Bello博士引用「沒有證據並不代表不存在」的格言，認為早期工具的稀少可能是由於保存狀況不佳或鑑定困難造成的。德國漢諾威Lower Saxony State文化遺產辦公室的古代文物分析專家Thomas Terberger對此表示贊同。他說： “或許在尚未發現的遺址，或在現有的博物館藏品中可能找到更多證據。”

Terberger 博士指出，這些新研究凸顯了史前人類用於製造工具的原料的多樣性。 他說:「燧石雖然比較常見，但骨頭和木頭對我們的古代祖先來說可能更有價值」; 「想想看，用一根巨大的象骨可以製作出多少種工具啊！」。

So, early hominins in Europe were creating tools from raw materials hundreds of thousands of years before Homo sapiens arrived there. The new evidence includes a 500,000-year-old hammer made of elephant or mammoth bone, excavated in southern England, and 430,000-year-old wooden tools found in southern Greece. These findings suggest that early humans possessed sophisticated technological skills. Probably, further proof may be found in as-yet undiscovered sites or existing museum collections. Apparently, this is a great story in understanding our pre-modern history.

科學家在6萬年前的箭矢上發現最古老的毒藥

Recently the New York Times reported the following:

Scientists Discover Oldest Poison, on 60,000-Year-Old Arrows

Residues on arrow tips found in South Africa hint at how far back in history humans have been using poison for survival.

Trilobites - By Becky Ferreira

Jan. 7, 2026

Today it seems obvious: Dip a sharp object in a poisonous substance, and then use that weapon to take down your prey. But when did human beings figure out this deadly strategy?

It remains as mysterious as the dawn of setting fires, building wheels and painting on caves. But a new study pushes back the timeline of this innovative hunting technique by tens of thousands of years.

Researchers led by Sven Isaksson, a professor of archaeological science at Stockholm University, have discovered poison residues on 60,000-year-old arrow tips unearthed in South Africa. With the next-oldest trace of poison use dated to 35,000 years ago, these tips preserve the earliest evidence of poisoned weapons by a wide margin.

“It’s a big leap,” Dr. Isaksson said of the discovery, which was published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

“It might be an even earlier practice,” he added. “This is just the earliest evidence so far.”

The finding reinforces existing evidence that early Homo sapiens had cognitive abilities nearing the sophistication of our own. That’s because in order to tip an arrow with poison, hunters needed knowledge of local plants and their effects, as well as the ability to craft special weapons with the right dosages.

“It takes a developed working memory to be able to predict that if I put this arrowhead into that plant, it will shorten the delay before I get my hands on this meat,” Dr. Isaksson said.

Dr. Isaksson and colleagues examined specimens that were originally discovered in 1985 at the Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter in eastern South Africa. The shelter contains layers of archaeological remains that were left tens of thousands of years ago. The researchers were inspired to look more closely at a handful of quartz arrow tips lodged in sediments estimated to be 60,000 years old.

The arrow points are unusually small, which suggests that they might have been crafted to deliver poison efficiently into an impact wound, as opposed to inflicting a blunt-force injury.

The team performed chemical and molecular analyses of the artifacts. That revealed two toxic compounds, buphanidrine and epibuphanisine, that were most likely collected from Boophone disticha, a plant known as the Bushman’s poison bulb. It remains a frequent source of poison used by traditional hunters in the region, such as the San and Khoe peoples, to this day, helping them slow their prey rather than kill it with a knockout blow.

Felix Riede, a professor of archaeology at Aarhus University in Denmark, called the discovery a “spectacular finding” that appears to be “the earliest evidence of poison use globally so far.”

He added that the paper was a demonstration “that it is possible to extract poison signatures from even very ancient residues on stone tools.” Similar compounds should be sought elsewhere, he said.

Michelle C. Langley, an associate professor of archaeology at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University, likewise pointed to the possibility that new clues about this ancient tradition may be hidden at other fossil sites or in collections.

“It is always worth going back and taking another look,” Dr. Langley said. “Especially as our techniques get better and cheaper and faster, people can at least look for things in the tiny little crevices and cracks where maybe something has been kept all those years.”

She also noted that the identification of these poison-tipped weapons added to a growing body of evidence that our human ancestors 60,000 years ago — and even earlier — were cognitively on par with modern humans.

“I’m not surprised that they found this,” Dr. Langley said. “It’s just building on everything that’s come before it, and really substantiating that the people 60,000 years ago were as complex as we are today.”

Translation

科學家在6萬年前的箭矢上發現最古老的毒藥

在南非發現的箭尖上的毒藥殘留物揭示了人類使用毒藥求生的歷史可以追溯到多麼久遠的年代。

如今看來，這似乎是顯浅：將尖銳的物體浸入毒液中，然後用這件武器獵殺獵物。但人類究竟在何時掌握了這種致命的策略呢？

它至今仍像人類發明火、製造車輪和在洞穴中作畫一樣神秘。但一項新的研究將這種創新狩獵技術的歷史向前推前了數萬年。

由斯德哥爾摩大學考古學教授領導的研究團隊在南非出土的6萬年前的箭尖上發現了毒藥殘留物。繼35,000年前發現的第二古老的毒藥使用痕跡之後，這些箭尖保存了迄今為止發現的最早的毒藥武器證據，時間上大幅度先於第二古老的。

Isaksson博士在談到這項週三發表在《科學進展》（Science Advances）雜誌上的發現時說道: 「這是一項重大突破」。

他補充道:“這或許是一種更早的狩獵技術實踐”，“這只是目前為止發現的最早證據。”

這項發現進一步證實了早期智人的認知能力已接近我們現代人的水平。這是因為，為了在箭尖上塗毒，獵人需要了解當地植物及其作用，以及製作含有正確劑量毒藥的特殊武器的能力。

Isaksson博士說: 「需要一個成熟的工作記憶才能預測到，如果我把這個箭頭放進那株植物裡，它會縮短我拿到這塊肉的等待時間」。

Isaksson博士及其同事研究了原先於1985年在南非東部Umhlatuzana岩棚發現的標本。該岩棚包含數萬年前遺留下來的多層考古遺跡。研究人員受到啟發，開始仔細研究幾枚嵌在估計有6萬年歷史的沉積物中的石英箭頭。

這些箭頭異常小巧，這表明它們可能是為了有效地將毒液注入受擊中的傷口而設計，而不是為了施加鈍性傷害。

研究團隊對這些文物進行了化學和分子分析。分析結果顯示，其中含有兩種有毒化合物：布芬尼鹼和表布芬尼鹼，它們很可能是從一種名為“刺眼花”（Boophone disticha）的植物中提取的，這種植物也被稱為“布什曼人的毒球莖”。時至今日，這種毒藥仍然是該地區傳統獵人（例如San人和Khoe人）常用的毒藥來源，它幫助減緩獵物的速度，而不是一擊斃命。

丹麥奧胡斯大學考古學教授Felix Riede稱這一發現為“驚人的發現”，並認為這是“迄今為止全球範圍內最早的毒藥使用證據”。

他補充說，這篇論文證明「即使是非常古老的石器殘留物，也有可能提取出毒藥的痕跡」。他表示，應該在其他地方尋找類似的化合物。

格里菲斯大學澳洲人類演化研究中心考古學副教授Michelle C. Langley也指出，關於這項古老傳統的線索可能隱藏在其他化石遺址或收藏品中。

Langley博士說: 「回頭再仔細研究一次總是值得」; 「尤其隨著技術越來越先進、成本越來越低、速度越來越快，人們至少可以去那些細小的縫隙和裂縫裡尋找東西，說不定有些東西就藏在那裡好多年了」。

她也指出，這些毒刺武器的發現，加大了在增加中的證據，顯示我們人類祖先在6萬年前 - 甚至更早 - 的認知能力就與現代人不相上下。

Langley博士說: “我對他們的發現並不感到驚訝” ， “這只是建立在之前所有研究成果的基礎上，真正證實了6萬年前的人類和我們今天的人類一樣複雜。”

              So, researchers have discovered poison residues on 60,000-year-old arrow tips unearthed in South Africa. With the next-oldest trace of poison use dated to 35,000 years ago, these tips preserve the earliest evidence of poisoned weapons by a wide margin. Apparently, these poison-tipped weapons add to a growing body of evidence that our human ancestors 60,000 years ago were as clever as we are.

Note:

1. Buphanidrine and epibuphanisine (布芬尼鹼和表布芬尼鹼) are Amaryllidaceae alkaloids, a class of naturally occurring compounds found mainly in plants of the genus Buphane (family Amaryllidaceae), which are native to southern Africa. Buphane plants are poisonous; alkaloids like buphanidrine contribute to their toxicity. (ChatGPT)

培訓課程教導「螢幕世代」如何駕馭社交媒體與人工智能（2/2）

 The Class Where ‘Screenagers’ Train to Navigate Social Media and A.I. (2/2)

New technologies are complicating efforts to teach the scrolling generation to think critically and defensively online.

By Tiffany Hsu

Dec. 25, 2025

(continue)

Policymakers are paying more attention to the issue. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., urged schools in 2023 to set up digital literacy instruction. At least 25 states have approved related legislation, according to an upcoming report from Media Literacy Now, a nonprofit group. This summer, for example, North Carolina passed a law requiring social media literacy coursework starting in the 2026-27 school year, covering topics such as mental health, misinformation and cyberbullying.

Many of those new rules, however, are voluntary, toothless or slow to take effect or do not acknowledge the growing presence of artificial intelligence.

“I absolutely wish we could make things happen faster,” said Assemblyman Marc Berman of California, a Democrat who wrote two media literacy bills passed in 2023 and 2024. The bills nudged the state to incorporate lessons about media literacy and responsible A.I. use at each grade level, but California education officials have yet to decide on a formal course of action.

“It’s about really strengthening those foundational skills so that no matter what tech pops up between now and then, young people have the ability to handle it,” Mr. Berman said.

Ms. Ziegler and her peers across California and the country are scrambling to make sense of A.I. The San Diego Unified School District held A.I. expos for its teachers over the past two summers, with each drawing more than 150 educators. At the Elk Grove Unified School District in Sacramento County, teachers have turned to Code.org, MIT Media Lab and others for resources focused on A.I.

Educators are grappling with A.I. literacy even beyond high school. Augsburg University in Minneapolis offered a class this year called “Defense Against the Dark Arts,” focused on how “disinformation, alternate facts, propaganda, deepfakes” and more saturate social media and daily life. Adam Berinsky, a political science professor at M.I.T., has taught a class about misinformation on social media since 2019 but added lessons on the challenges and benefits of A.I. in the spring.

“A.I. is everywhere these days,” he said. “I adjusted teaching accordingly.”

Ms. Ziegler’s students are a savvy bunch, though the volume of junk online can feel overwhelming.

In November, her classes chatted about the flood of social media content featuring Zohran Mamdani, the first Muslim to be elected New York City’s mayor. During the election, authority figures once considered trustworthy sources — including a sitting member of Congress and the former governor of New York running against Mr. Mamdani — shared artificially generated content showing the Statue of Liberty wearing a burqa and Mr. Mamdani being praised by criminals. (The latter included a small, brief disclosure that it was generated by A.I.) Posts spreading disinformation about his policy plans received hundreds of thousands of views, dwarfing those of fact-check posts.

At one point in the discussion, a student piped up with a common refrain: “Don’t trust anything you see.”

That sentiment worries Ms. Ziegler. Fact-checkers and disinformation analysts have cautioned for years about a creeping sense of nihilism toward reality.

“There’s almost this mind-set now with young people that everything’s fake,” she said. “They have heard so much about things being fake online, but they don’t know how to necessarily tell.”

Translation

培訓課程教導「螢幕世代」如何駕馭社交媒體與人工智能（2/2）

新科技正使教導「螢幕世代」進行批判性思考和網路防禦變得更加複雜。

（繼續）

政策制定者越來越關注這個問題。在拜登總統任期內擔任衛生局局長的Vivek Murthy醫生, 敦促各校在2023年開設電子數據素養課程。根據非營利組織「媒體素養行動」（Media Literacy Now）即將發佈的報告顯示，至少有25個州已批准相關立法。例如，今年夏天，北卡羅來納州通過了一項法律，要求從2026-2027學年開始開設社交媒體素養課程，內容涵蓋心理健康、虛假資訊和網路霸凌等主題。

然而，許多新規都是自願性的，缺乏強制力，或生效緩慢，又或沒有考慮到人工智能日益增長的影響。

加州民主黨眾議員Marc Berman說:「我真心希望事情能進展得更快一些」。他曾提出兩項媒體素養法案，分別於2023年和2024年獲得通過。這兩項法案敦促加州在每個年級的課程中融入媒體素養和負責任地使用人工智能的相關內容，但加州教育官員尚未就正式的行動方案做出決定。

Berman說: 「關鍵在於真正加強這些基礎技能，這樣無論現在及未來出現什麼新技術，年輕人都能應對自如」。

Ziegler女士和她在加州乃至全美各地的同行們都在努力理解人工智能。聖地牙哥聯合學區在過去兩個暑假為教師舉辦了人工智能博覽會，每次都吸引了超過150名教育工作者參加。在薩克拉門託縣的Elk Grove聯合學區，教師們則轉向Code.org、麻省理工學院媒體實驗室等機構尋求人工智能方面的資源。

教育工作者仍在努力提升即使在高中畢業後學生的人工智能素養。明尼阿波利斯的Augsburg大學今年開設了一門名為「抵禦黑暗藝術」的課程，重點在於「假訊息、另類事實、宣傳、深度偽造」等如何正充斥社交媒體和日常生活。麻省理工學院政治學教授Adam Berinsky自2019年以來一直在教授關於社交媒體虛假資訊的課程，並在今年春季增加了關於人工智能挑戰和益處的課程。

他說:“如今人工智能無處不在”;“我相應地調整了教學內容。”

Ziegler女士的學生都很精明，但網路上大量的垃圾資訊仍然會讓人感到不知所措。

去年11月，她的學生們討論了鋪天蓋地的社交媒體關於Zohran Mamdani的內容，他是紐約市首位當選的穆斯林市長。在選舉期間，一些曾經被視為可信消息來源的權威人士 - 包括一位現任國會議員和一位與Mamdani競選的紐約州前州長 - 分享了人工智能生成的虛假內容，例如自由女神像戴著罩袍，以及Mamdani受到犯罪分子的讚揚, （後者附帶了一小段簡短的說明，表明它是由人工智能生成）。散佈有關Mamdan政策計劃的虛假信息的帖子獲得了數十萬的瀏覽量，遠遠超過了事實核查帖子的瀏覽量。

在討論過程中，一位學生突然插話一句老生常談：“不要相信你看到的任何東西。”

這種情緒令Ziegler女士感到擔憂。多年來，事實查核員和假資訊分析專家一直警告人們，一種對現實逐漸滋生的虛無主義情緒。

她說:「現在年輕人幾乎都抱著一種『一切都是假的』的心態」; 「他們聽過太多關於網絡信息是虛假的說法，但他們並不一定知道如何辨別真假」。

So, California educators are racing to prepare students in a rapidly changing online world. Artificial intelligence is evolving so quickly and generating such persuasive content that even professionals who specialize in detecting fake contents are facing challenges. Apparently, new technologies are complicating efforts to teach the AI generation to think critically and defensively online.