考古發(fā)現(xiàn)大洪水證據(jù)，夏朝存在或非神話

Scientists have found evidence of a catastrophic flood that overwhelmed the upper Yellow River valley in China some 4,000 years ago, an event that they say may confirm the historical basis of China’s semi-legendary first dynasty.

科學(xué)家已經(jīng)找到了約4000年前黃河上游地區(qū)被一場(chǎng)特大洪水淹沒的證據(jù)，他們說這一事件或許為半傳奇色彩的首個(gè)中國(guó)王朝提供了歷史依據(jù)。

Ancient Chinese texts record a mix of historical events and legends. Some records, such as those relating to China’s second and third dynasties, were confirmed in surprising detail when archaeologists turned up inscriptions on oracle bones and ancient bronzes.

中國(guó)古籍中記載著各種各樣的歷史事件和傳奇。當(dāng)考古學(xué)家破解了甲骨和古代青銅器上的銘文時(shí)，有些記錄——比如與中國(guó)的第二個(gè)及第三個(gè)朝代有關(guān)的那些——得到了極為翔實(shí)的佐證。

But records of the first dynasty, that of the Xia, contain stories of a Great Flood with a Noah-like savior, the Emperor Yu, who gained the mandate of heaven after dredging canals to dispel the floodwaters and make the land safe. Historians have long wondered whether this flood account was a creation-style myth, the folk memory of a real event, or some mixture of the two. Some have dismissed the story of Emperor Yu as a fiction intended to justify centralized rule and, in the absence of any evidence of a massive flood at the time, many have regarded the stories of the Xia dynasty as more myth than history.

但關(guān)于中國(guó)第一個(gè)朝代夏朝的記錄，涉及一場(chǎng)大洪水以及諾亞般的救世主禹帝的故事，在疏通河道，驅(qū)退洪水，保一方平安后，他受天命成為帝王。歷史學(xué)家一直想要弄清，關(guān)于這場(chǎng)洪水的記載到底是創(chuàng)世神話還是一場(chǎng)真實(shí)事件的民間記憶，又或者是兩者兼而有之。一些人把關(guān)于禹帝的故事斥為旨在為中央集權(quán)統(tǒng)治辯護(hù)的虛構(gòu)作品。此外，由于當(dāng)時(shí)缺乏能證明發(fā)生過大洪水的證據(jù)，許多人都把關(guān)于夏朝的故事當(dāng)成傳說而非歷史來看待。

A team of archaeologists and geologists led by Qinglong Wu of Peking University in Beijing has now discovered evidence of a massive flood that they say could be the Great Flood mentioned in the Chinese annals.

由北京大學(xué)的吳慶龍領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的一個(gè)考古學(xué)家和地質(zhì)學(xué)家團(tuán)隊(duì)，現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)找到發(fā)生過一場(chǎng)大規(guī)模洪水的證據(jù)，他們說這可能就是一些中國(guó)史書提到的那場(chǎng)大洪水。

The setting for the flood was a landslide, caused by an earthquake, that planted a massive natural dam across the Yellow River where it travels through the Jishi Gorge after emerging from the Tibetan plateau. To judge from the remaining sidewalls, the researchers wrote in Friday’s issue of Science, the dam would have risen some 800 feet above the river’s present level.

洪水之所以發(fā)生，是因?yàn)榈卣鹨鹕襟w滑坡，形成了一道橫跨黃河的巨型天然堤壩，從青藏高原流過來的黃河水，本應(yīng)在那里穿過積石峽。研究人員在周五發(fā)表于《科學(xué)》(Science)雜志的文章中稱，從現(xiàn)存的側(cè)壁判斷，那道堤壩比黃河當(dāng)前的水位高出約800英尺(約合240米)。

For six to nine months, Dr. Wu’s team estimates, the river ceased to flow as water accumulated in the new lake behind the dam. Then, as the water overtopped the dam’s crest, the dam rapidly gave way, releasing up to 3.8 cubic miles of water, one of the largest known floods in the last 10,000 years. The outburst flood wave could have traveled as far as 1,250 miles downstream, breaking the river’s natural banks, causing extensive flooding and even making the Yellow River switch course.

據(jù)吳慶龍的團(tuán)隊(duì)推測(cè)，在6至9個(gè)月里，黃河完全被堵塞，河水都匯聚在壩體后邊新形成的堰塞湖里。接著，壩體在湖水漫過壩頂之際迅速潰決，釋放了最多可達(dá)3.8立方英里(約合15.8立方公里)的湖水，這是過去一萬年以來已知的規(guī)模最大的洪水之一。潰壩洪水可能向下游奔涌了1250英里(約合2000公里)之遠(yuǎn)，沖毀了黃河的天然河岸，令許多地方被淹，甚至導(dǎo)致了黃河改道。

Floods are often hard to date. But the same earthquake that dammed the river provided a date by destroying a village called Lajia some 16 miles downstream. Fissures caused by the earthquake are completely filled with sediment from the outburst flood, with no annual deposit of the windblown earth that is common in the region, which means the flood occurred the same year as the earthquake, Dr. Wu’s team says.

洪水通常是很難定年的。但是造成黃河堵塞的那場(chǎng)地震還摧毀了下游約16英里處的喇家村，這就提供了關(guān)于時(shí)間的信息。地震造成的裂隙里，填滿了來自潰壩洪水的沉積物，但卻看不到當(dāng)?shù)氐湫偷娘L(fēng)成土堆積，吳慶龍的團(tuán)隊(duì)說，這意味著洪水和地震是在同一年發(fā)生的。

Radiocarbon dating of the bones of three children killed by the earthquake establish that the event took place around 1920 B.C.

用放射性碳測(cè)年法對(duì)在地震中喪生的三名兒童的遺骸進(jìn)行檢測(cè)后，研究者確定洪水大約發(fā)生在公元前1920年。

The date offers a striking temporal link to the Xia dynasty which, if it existed, is thought to have begun at this time. A modern Chinese chronology project sets the beginning of the dynasty at 2070 B.C. Even closer, two scholars working from Chinese astronomical records — a statement that there was a close conjunction of five planets early in the reign of the Emperor Yu — have calculated that the dynasty began in 1914 B.C.

該日期與夏朝有著明顯的時(shí)間上的聯(lián)系，有人認(rèn)為，如果夏朝存在的話，應(yīng)該就是在這一時(shí)期建立的。根據(jù)中國(guó)當(dāng)代的一項(xiàng)斷代工程，夏朝始于公元前2070年。有一個(gè)說法還要更接近，兩名學(xué)者通過研究中國(guó)的天文記錄——據(jù)記載在禹帝統(tǒng)治初期，出現(xiàn)過一次五大行星會(huì)聚的現(xiàn)象——得出結(jié)論，夏朝始于公元前1914年。

Chinese annals record that Emperor Yu contrived a recovery from the Great Flood by dredging drainage canals rather than trying to repair breaches in the Yellow River’s dikes, as his predecessor had done. He also laid the foundations for the Chinese civilization that followed by specifying which regions should send tribute. The place where he began his operations is recorded as Jishi, which has the same Chinese characters as that of the gorge where the landslide dam occurred.

據(jù)中國(guó)史書記載，禹帝是通過疏通河道成功治水的，而不是像他的前任那樣，試圖修復(fù)黃河堤岸的決口。他還為華夏文明奠定了基礎(chǔ)，并對(duì)各地的進(jìn)貢做出了規(guī)定。據(jù)記載，大禹治水的起點(diǎn)是“積石”，與曾有滑坡壩存在的那個(gè)峽谷同名。

Dr. Wu’s team said its reconstruction of the outburst flood from the Jishi Gorge showed that the ancient textual accounts of the Great Flood “may well be rooted in a historic natural event.” The finding also supports the idea, the researchers say, that archaeological remains found at Erlitou, a site about 1,550 miles downstream from the gorge, may have been the Xia capital, given that the Erlitou culture dates to 1900 B.C., the same time as the Jishi Gorge flood.

吳慶龍的團(tuán)隊(duì)表示，他們對(duì)積石峽洪水的模擬重現(xiàn)顯示出，古代對(duì)大洪水的描述“很可能是基于歷史上的一個(gè)自然事件”。研究人員表示，這個(gè)發(fā)現(xiàn)也支持了這樣一種觀念：考慮到二里頭文化可以追溯至公元前1900年，與積石峽大洪水爆發(fā)的時(shí)間吻合，所以位于積石峽下游約1550英里處的考古發(fā)現(xiàn)二里頭遺址，有可能就是夏朝的首都。

But historians may require more evidence before signing on to the team’s thesis. It is not so clear how a folk memory of the flood could have been accurately maintained for at least 900 years, as Dr. Wu’s team suggested, given that elements in the texts may begin as early as 1,000 years ago. There were probably many floods, which may have been conflated in popular memory, said Sarah Allan, a historian of ancient China at Dartmouth College. In her view, the Great Flood described in the ancient texts is a myth to explain how the world was made, not a historical event.

不過，歷史學(xué)家們需要更多的證據(jù)才能采納該團(tuán)隊(duì)的這一假設(shè)。目前還不太清楚，有關(guān)一場(chǎng)大洪水的民間記憶如何能像吳慶龍的團(tuán)隊(duì)所認(rèn)為的那樣，被精確地維持了至少900年，因?yàn)槲淖钟涊d的事可能是1000年前發(fā)生的。美國(guó)達(dá)特茅斯學(xué)院(Dartmouth College)研究古代中國(guó)的歷史學(xué)家艾蘭(Sarah Allan)表示，可能爆發(fā)過多次洪水，它們?cè)诖蟊娪洃浿斜换煜?。在她看來，古書中描述的大洪水是一個(gè)解釋世界如何形成的神話，而不是一個(gè)歷史事件。

“The story begins with water everywhere and the problem is how to make the world habitable,” she said. Even if the myth was centered on a real event, it is a reach to associate this with the Jishi Gorge flood or the flood with the Erlitou culture, she said.

“這個(gè)故事的開頭講到世界上到處都是水，當(dāng)時(shí)的問題是如何讓這個(gè)世界變得適于人類居住，”她說。她還表示，即便神話是基于一個(gè)真實(shí)的事件，也不見得就能與積石峽洪水或二里頭文化中的洪水聯(lián)系起來。

Paul Goldin, who studies China’s Warring States period at the University of Pennsylvania, also sees the stories of Yu and the Great Flood as unlikely to represent historical events. And they date mostly to the fourth century B.C., long after the Jishi Gorge flood. “These are relatively late legends that were propagated for philosophical and political reasons, and it’s inherently questionable to suppose that they represent some dim memory of the past,” he said.

在賓夕法尼亞大學(xué)(University of Pennsylvania)研究戰(zhàn)國(guó)歷史的金鵬程(Paul Goldin)也認(rèn)為，大禹和大洪水的故事不太可能是對(duì)歷史事件的描述。這些故事大多追溯到公元前四世紀(jì)，而積石峽洪水發(fā)生的時(shí)間要早得多。“這些是比較晚一些的傳說，因一些哲學(xué)和政治因素被傳播開來，去假定它們描繪了過去的一些模糊記憶，本身就是有問題的，”他說。

Dr. Goldin remarked on a “kind of fixation” in Chinese archaeology “to prove all the ancient texts and legends have some fundamental truth, which is an overreaction to an earlier period when they were rejected as myth. It shouldn’t be every archaeologist’s first instinct to see if their findings are matched in the historical sources,” he said.

金鵬程談到了中國(guó)考古界的一種“執(zhí)迷”，即他們?cè)噲D“證明所有的古老文本和傳說都有一些基本的真實(shí)性。這是對(duì)此前一段時(shí)間它們被貶為神話的一種過激反應(yīng)?？脊艑W(xué)家的第一反應(yīng)不應(yīng)該是去探究自己的發(fā)現(xiàn)是否與史料匹配，”他說。

The Jishi Gorge flood occurred at a pivotal time in Chinese history, the boundary between the Neolithic Age and the Bronze Age that followed. Dr. Wu’s team said at a news conference on Wednesday that the story of Yu taming the flood represents the emergence of a new political order. The archaeological record shows some sort of a decline, as would be expected after a great catastrophe, followed in the Bronze Age, first seen in the Erlitou culture, by new levels of development, a large increase in the size of cities, the development of writing and workshops manufacturing bronze.

積石峽洪水發(fā)生在中國(guó)歷史上一個(gè)關(guān)鍵的時(shí)期，介于新石器時(shí)代和之后的青銅器時(shí)代之間。吳慶龍的團(tuán)隊(duì)在周三舉行的一場(chǎng)新聞發(fā)布會(huì)上表示，大禹治水的故事代表一種新的政治秩序的出現(xiàn)。從考古紀(jì)錄可以看到某種衰落，在一場(chǎng)大災(zāi)難之后，這是可以想象的，到了青銅器時(shí)代，發(fā)展達(dá)到了一個(gè)新的層次，最早可見于二里頭文化，城市規(guī)模大幅增加，文字以及制造青銅器的作坊得到發(fā)展。

“If they can show some kind of connection in the archaeological record between the Jishi Gorge flood and the emergence of a culture like Erlitou, that would be a major improvement of our understanding of history,” Dr. Goldin said.

“如果他們能在考古記錄中展現(xiàn)積石峽洪水和二里頭等文化的出現(xiàn)之間存在某種聯(lián)系，那將大大提升我們對(duì)歷史的理解，”金鵬程說。