第1段

An important archaeological discovery on the island of Efate in the Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu has revealed traces of an ancient seafaring people, the distant ancestors of today’s Polynesians. The site came to light only by chance. An agricultural worker, digging in the grounds of a derelict plantation, scraped open a grave—the first of dozens in a burial ground some 3,000 years old. It is the oldest cemetery ever found in the Pacific islands, and it harbors the remains of an ancient people archaeologists call the Lapita.

    在瓦努阿图太平洋群岛的埃法特岛上，一项重要的考古发现揭示了古代航海民族的痕迹，这些人是今天波利尼西亚人的远古祖先。这个遗址只是偶然发现的。一名农业工人在一处废弃的种植园地里挖掘时，意外打开了一个坟墓，这是一个有3000年历史的墓地中的第一个坟墓。这是太平洋岛屿上迄今发现的最古老的墓地，其中保存着考古学家称之为拉皮塔人的古代人的遗骸。

第2段

They were daring blue-water adventurers who used basic canoes to rove across the ocean. But they were not just explorers. They were also pioneers who carried with them everything they would need to build new lives—their livestock, taro seedlings and stone tools. Within the span of several centuries, the Lapita stretched the boundaries of their world from the jungle-clad volcanoes of Papua New Guinea to the loneliest coral outliers of Tonga.

他们是勇敢的蓝水冒险家，使用基本的独木舟在海洋中漫游。但他们不仅仅是探险者，他们还是开拓者，带着自己需要建立新生活的一切东西——家畜、芋头幼苗和石器。在几个世纪的时间里，拉皮塔将他们的世界边界从巴布亚新几内亚丛林覆盖的火山延伸到汤加最孤寂的珊瑚屿。

第3段

The Lapita left precious few dues about themselves, but Efate expands the volume of data available to researchers dramatically. The remains of 62 individuals have been uncovered so far, and archaeologists were also thrilled to find six complete Lapita pots. Other items included a Lapita burial urn with modeled birds arranged on the rim as though peering down at the human remains sealed inside. ‘It’s an important discovery’, says Matthew Spriggs, professor of archaeology at the Australian National University and head of the international team digging up the site, for it conclusively identifies the remains as Lapita.’

拉皮塔留下的关于他们自己的宝贵线索很少，但埃法特岛为研究人员提供了大量的数据。迄今已经发掘出62个个体的遗骸，考古学家们还兴奋地发现了六个完整的拉皮塔陶罐。其他物品包括一个拉皮塔葬礼瓮，瓮的边缘上排列着塑造的鸟，仿佛在窥视封藏在内部的人类遗骸。澳大利亚国立大学的考古学教授、这个考古遗址挖掘项目的负责人马修·斯普里格斯表示：“这是一个重要的发现，它明确地将这些遗骸认定为拉皮塔人。”

第4段

DNA teased from these human remains may help answer one of the most puzzling questions in Pacific anthropology: did all Pacific islanders spring from one source or many? Was there only one outward migration from a single point in Asia, or several from different points? ‘This represents the best opportunity we’ve had yet,’ says Spriggs, ‘to find out who the Lapita actually were, where they came from, and who their closest descendants are today.’

从这些遗骸中提取的DNA可能有助于回答太平洋人类学中最令人困惑的问题之一：太平洋岛民是否都源自同一来源还是源于多个来源？亚洲只有一个出口迁徙，还是有多个不同地点的迁徙？斯普里格斯说：“这是我们迄今为止最好的机会，可以弄清楚拉皮塔人到底是谁，他们来自哪里，以及他们今天最亲近的后裔是谁。”

第5段

There is one stubborn question for which archaeology has yet to provide any answers: how did the Lapita accomplish the ancient equivalent of a moon landing, many times over? No-one has found one of their canoes or any rigging, which could reveal how the canoes were sailed. Nor do the oral histories and traditions of later Polynesians offer any insights, for they turn into myths long before they reach as far back in time as the Lapita.

有一个困扰人们的问题至今考古学仍未提供答案：拉皮塔人是如何实现古代版“登月”行动的？至今没有人发现过他们的独木舟或任何船帆结构，这些结构可以揭示独木舟的航行方式。后来波利尼西亚人的口头历史和传统也没有提供任何线索，因为它们在时间上远不及拉皮塔人。

第6段

‘All we can say for certain is that the Lapita had canoes that were capable of ocean voyages, and they had the ability to sail them,’ says Geoff Irwin, a professor of archaeology at the University of Auckland. Those sailing skills, he says, were developed and passed down over thousands of years by earlier mariners who worked their way through the archipelagoes of the western Pacific, making short crossings to nearby islands. The real adventure didn’t begin, however, until their Lapita descendants sailed out of sight of land, with empty horizons on every side. This must have been as difficult for them as landing on the moon is for us today. Certainly it distinguished them from their ancestors, but what gave them the courage to launch out on such risky voyages?

奥克兰大学的考古学教授杰夫·欧文说：“我们只能肯定拉皮塔人拥有能够进行海洋航行的独木舟，并且他们有能力驾驶它们。”他表示，这些航海技能是由早期的水手通过穿越西太平洋群岛、进行短途航行到附近岛屿的方式发展和传承下来的。然而，真正的冒险并没有开始，直到他们的拉皮塔后代远离陆地，在四周都是空旷的地平线上航行。这对他们来说一定很困难，就像登月对我们今天来说一样。当然，这使他们与他们的祖先有所区别，但是是什么给予他们勇气去进行如此冒险的航行呢？

第7段

The Lapita’s thrust into the Pacific was eastward, against the prevailing trade winds, Irwin notes. Those nagging headwinds, he argues, may have been the key to their success. ‘They could sail out for days into the unknown and assess the area, secure in the knowledge that if they didn’t find anything, they could turn about and catch a swift ride back on the trade winds. This is what would have made the whole thing work.’ Once out there, skilled seafarers would have detected abundant leads to follow to land: seabirds, coconuts and twigs carried out to sea by the tides, and the afternoon pile-up of clouds on the horizon which often indicates an island in the distance.

欧文指出，拉皮塔人向太平洋进发时逆风而行。他认为，这些顽固的逆风可能是他们成功的关键。“他们可以航行数日进入未知海域，并评估情况，因为他们知道如果他们找不到任何东西，他们可以转身乘上顺风返回。这才是整个过程能够成功的关键。”一旦航行到一定地点，熟练的航海者就会发现丰富的引导线索，例如海鸟、椰子和被潮水带到海上的树枝，以及下午陆地上堆积的云朵，通常表示附近有岛屿。

第8段

For returning explorers successful or not, the geography of their own archipelagoes would have provided a safety net. Without this to go by, overshooting their home pores, getting lost and sailing off into eternity would have been all too easy. Vanuatu, for example, stretches more than 500 miles in a northwest-southeast trend, its scores of intervisible islands forming a backstop for mariners riding the trade winds home.

对于成功或失败的返回探险家来说，他们自己群岛的地理位置将提供一个安全网。如果没有这个参考，他们很容易超过他们的家园港口、迷失方向，漂泊到永远找不到归宿的地方。例如，瓦努阿图在西北-东南方向上延伸超过500英里，其众多的可见岛屿为乘着顺风返航的航海者提供了一个后备支撑。

第9段

All this presupposes one essential detail, says Atholl Anderson, professor of prehistory at the Australian National University: the Lapita had mastered the advanced art of sailing against the wind. ‘And there’s no proof they could do any such thing,’ Anderson says. ‘There has been this assumption they did, and people have built canoes to re-create those early voyages based on that assumption. But nobody has any idea what their canoes looked like or how they were rigged.’

澳大利亚国立大学的史前历史学教授阿索尔·安德森说，所有这些都假设一个重要的细节：拉皮塔人已经掌握了逆风航行的高级艺术。“但没有任何证据表明他们确实能够这样做。”安德森说，“人们一直以来都假设他们能够逆风航行，并根据这种假设建造独木舟重新模拟早期航行。但没有人知道他们的独木舟长什么样子或者如何装备。”

第10段

Rather than give all the credit to human skill, Anderson invokes the winds of chance. El Nino, the same climate disruption that affects the Pacific today, may have helped scatter the Lapita, Anderson suggests. He points out that climate data obtained from slow-growing corals around the Pacific indicate a series of unusually frequent El Ninos around the time of the Lapita expansion. By reversing the regular east-to-west flow of the trade winds for weeks at a time, these ‘super El Ninos’ might have taken the Lapita on long unplanned voyages.

安德森认为，与其完全归功于人类的技能，不如归因于机缘之风。安德森指出，从太平洋周围的生长缓慢的珊瑚得到的气候数据显示，在拉皮塔扩张的时期，出现了一系列异常频繁的“超级厄尔尼诺现象”。通过改变贸易风数周时间内的东向西流，这些“超级厄尔尼诺现象”可能会让拉皮塔进行漫长的、无计划的航行。

第11段

However they did it, the Lapita spread themselves a third of the way across the Pacific, then called it quits for reasons known only to them. Ahead lay the vast emptiness of the central Pacific and perhaps they were too thinly stretched to venture farther. They probably never numbered more than a few thousand in total, and in their rapid migration eastward they encountered hundreds of islands – more than 300 in Fiji alone.