雅思词汇趣味学习：从狗狗的起源中学习单词表达

数万年前，在人类还没有经历工业革命，没有发明金属冶炼，甚至还没有开始农耕生活的时候，我们的祖先就已经和灰狼形成了一种互惠的关系。从那 个时候开始，两个种族就一直生活在一起，影响着彼此。“人类最好的朋友”狗狗和凶狠的狼之间有什么联系呢?

Tens of thousands of years ago, early humans formed an unlikely partnership with another animal.

数万年前，早期人类与另一种动物形成了一种不太可能的伙伴关系。

The Grey wolf.

即灰狼。

Over time, the wolves changed in body and temperament.

随着时间的推移，狼的身体和气质发生了变化。

Their skulls, teeth and paws shrank.

他们的头骨、牙齿和爪子缩小。

Their ears flopped.

耳朵也变歪了。

They gained a docile disposition, becoming both less frightening and less fearful.

他们拥有了一个好性格，变得不那么可怕，也不那么让人畏而远之。

They turned into dogs.

他们变成了狗。

Scientists agree that all dogs descend from wild ancestral wolves, but they disagree as to when, where and how that happened.

科学家们一致认为狗的祖先是野生狼，但有关这一改变是在何时、何地和如何发生的仍存分歧。

Gregor Larson from the University of Oxford has been trying to get some firm answers.

牛津大学的Gregor Larson一直试图找到一些确切的答案。

Already, he and his team have yielded a surprising discovery.

他和他的团队已经有了一个惊人的发现。

They think dogs were domesticated not once but twice.

他们认为狗不仅被驯养一次，而是两次。

So here's the full story as Larson sees it.

这就是拉森所得到的全部故事。

Many thousands of years ago, somewhere in western Urasia, humans domesticated grey wolves.

几千年前，在亚欧大陆西部的某个地方，人类驯养了灰狼。

And the same thing happened independently far away in the East.

在遥远的东方也发生着同样的事情。

Around the Bronze Age, some of the ancient eastern dogs migrated west alongside their human partners.

青铜时代，一些古老的东方狗和人类伙伴一起向西迁徙。

And along their travels, these migrants encountered the indigenous, ancient western dogs.

旅途中，这些移民遇到了土生土长的古老西方狗。

They mated with them, doggy style presumably and effectively replaced them.

东西方的狗相互交配，用的就是狗狗的方式并取代了东方狗。

So today's western dogs trace most of their ancestry to the ancient eastern migrants.

所以今天西方狗的大部分祖先都要追溯到古代的东方移民。

Less than 10% comes from those ancient western dogs, which have since gone extinct.

仅有不到10%的狗来自那些已经灭绝的古老西方狗。

Other dog genetics experts think that there are other possible explanations, but Larson adds that his gene focused peers are ignoring one crucial line of evidence - bones.

其他的狗遗传学专家认为还有其他可能的解释，但拉森补充说，同龄人对基因的关注忽视了一个关键的证据线——骨骼。

If dogs originated just once, there should be a neat gradient of fossils with the oldest ones at the center of domestication and the youngest ones far away from it.

如果狗只进化一次，那呈现出来的就是一个一个整齐的化石梯度，另外，最年幼的狗狗是离驯养中心最远的。

But that's not what we have.

但这和我们目前所掌握的不尽一致。

So we now have a new origin story for dogs. 所以我们现在有了一个新版本的起源故事。

And this matters because dogs were the first species that we domesticated.

这很重要，因为狗是我们驯养的第 一个物种。

They came before crops, before livestock.

它们的出现先于庄稼，先于牲畜。

They heralded a change in our relationship to the natural world.

它们预示着我们与自然世界关系的改变。