新奇事件簿 石器切割術加速人類進化

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Eating habits and food processing skills from around two million years ago helped humans to evolve and develop language. Researchers from Harvard University say that learning to cut meat up and using basic stone tools to process food was a crucial step in our evolutionary process. The fact that we cut food up or pounded and crushed it meant we needed less time for chewing. This gave our mouths more free time to develop language and communicate. The researchers estimate that cutting up meat and other food saved early humans as many as 2.5 million chews per year. In contrast, the chimpanzee spends half of its day chewing, which means it has less time to communicate.

約200萬年前，人類飲食習慣和食品加工技術促進語言發(fā)展。來自哈佛大學研究人員表示，在食品加工過程中，切割與基本石器技術是人類進化的重要一步。通過切割，錘擊或砸擊食物，人類縮短了咀嚼時間。并為語言發(fā)展，溝通交流留有更多時間。據研究人員預測，通過切割食物，每年節(jié)省咀嚼次數多達2500萬次。但對于黑猩猩來說，每天一半時間用來咀嚼，溝通時間大大減少。

The researchers also said the shape of our face changed because we needed to chew less. Our jaws and teeth became smaller because we had learnt to cut up food. Professor Daniel Lieberman said: "We went from having snouts and big teeth and large chewing muscles to having smaller teeth, smaller chewing muscles, and snoutless faces. Those changes, and others, allowed for the selection for speech and other shifts in the head, like bigger brains." Dr Lieberman chewed raw goat meat to test his theory. He said: "You chew and you chew and you chew and you chew, and nothing happens." He added that to some extent, slicing meat into smaller pieces before chewing, "is the simplest technology of all".

據研究人員所述，由于咀嚼次數減少，人類臉型開始發(fā)生變化。由于切割術，下巴和牙齒體積變小。據丹尼爾·利伯曼所說：“從寬鼻大嘴到小鼻小嘴，從咀嚼肌發(fā)達到咀嚼肌薄弱。這些變化為溝通贏得空間，大腦等腦部活動也發(fā)生變化。”利伯曼通過咀嚼生山羊肉來驗證理論。他認為：“在這一過程中，除了咀嚼還是咀嚼。”他還稱在某種程度上，切割技術最為簡單。”