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As the last Ice Age came to an end, somebody picked a pebble out of a small river not far from Bethlehem. It's a pebble that must have been tumbled downstream, banged and smoothed against other stones as it went, in the process that geologists poetically describe as 'chattering'.
随着最后一个冰河时代宣告结束，有人从伯利恒附近流水淙淙的小溪边，捡起了一枚鹅卵石。这肯定是一枚来自下游的卵石了，逐流而下的过程中，受流水冲刷，在砂石间反复翻滚摩擦，直到棱角尽失，成为圆滑可爱的卵石。地质学家们很诗意地将这过程描述为“千锤百炼，终成正果”。
But about 11,000 years ago, a human hand then shaped and chipped this beautifully chattered, rounded pebble into one of the most moving objects in the British Museum. It shows two naked people literally wrapped up in each other. It's the oldest known representation of a couple having sex.
然后大约在一万一千年前左右，一双人手巧妙地将这枚“终成正果”的美丽卵石雕刻成了如今大英博物馆馆藏展品中最动人的一件。它显示了一对赤身裸体的人缠绵紧拥的姿态，这是世界上最早描绘男女性爱的物品。
'Well it's the classic thing that we always imagine that we discovered sex, and that all other ages before us were kind of rather prudish and simple, whereas in fact obviously human beings have been emotionally sophisticated since at least 8,000 BC when this sculpture was made, and just as sophisticated as us, I'm sure.'
“这么经典的东西总能引发我们的想象，我们发现了性爱，而后在当代人之前的漫长岁月里，在这话题上我们总是显得那么拘谨避讳。然而在公元前八千年左右这件雕塑制造出来时，显然我们人类在这方面早已拥有复杂的情感。我相信当时的人类情感之复杂，大概与你我一样。”
'And I think it's clear that sexuality was a very very important part of the symbolic and social world.'
“我认为很明显的，在当时整个人类象征性与社会性的世界里，性行为已经占据了相当重要的一部分。”
Ain Sakhri lovers，A stone sculpture discovered near Bethlehem , approximately 11,000 years old
Ain Sakhri的恋人塑像，石雕，距今约一万一千年前，出土于伯利恒地区附近。
At the end of the last Ice Age, as the climate warmed up across the world, humans gradually shifted from hunting and gathering to a settled way of life based on farming - and in the process, our relationship to the natural world was transformed.
在最后一次冰河时代后期，随着全球气候变暖，人类逐渐由过去狩猎与采集过渡到定居农耕的生活方式；在这个过程中，我们与大自然世界的关系在产生了巨变。
From living as a minor part of a balanced ecosystem, we start trying to overcome nature, to take control. In the Middle East the warmer weather brought a spread of rich grasslands. People had been moving around, hunting gazelle and gathering the seeds of lentils, chick peas and wild grasses. But in the new, lusher savannah, gazelle were plentiful and they tended to stay in one place throughout the year, so the humans settled down with them.
以前我们仅仅是作为一个平衡生态大系统中的一小部分因子，现在我们开始尝试来克服大自然，想要赢得主动权。在中东地区，转暖的气候带来了一望无际的浩瀚草原，水草丰茂，土质肥沃。人类曾经迁徙奔波，猎捕瞪羚，采集小扁豆、鹰嘴豆与各种野草的种子；然而在这片崭新而肥沃的稀树大草原之上，瞪羚的数量十分充足，往往常年累月停留在同一地方不迁移，因此人类也随之定居下来。
