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Thousands of years ago, one of our ancestors must accidentally have made their first pot. We can imagine that a lump of wet clay somehow ended up in the fire, dried out, hardened and formed a hollow shape; a shape that could hold things, in a tough material.
数千年前,我们某一祖先在偶然间创造出了首件陶器。我们可以想象一块湿泥巴最后在火上烧制，烘干，变硬，形成一件形状中空的器皿，材料简陋，不过可以盛放东西。
Until now, for the Ice Age cook, leaves were soggy, baskets and skins leaked and burned, and meat charred. Suddenly, when that wet clay hardened, a whole world of culinary possibilities and ceramic design opened up.
从冰河时代的厨师们，到此之前，人类学会了浸渍树叶，编制篮子，革制兽皮，烘烤兽肉。然而当人类掌握了用火烤硬湿粘土的技术，忽然之间，开辟了一个新兴烹饪技术与陶瓷设计的崭新世界。
The miraculous accident that produced pottery coincided with some great developments in human history. In the previous four programmes, I've been looking at the way humans began to rear animals and to cultivate plants. As a consequence, they started to cook differently, to eat new things and therefore to live differently-they settled down. Today, we're in Japan, about seven thousand years ago, with an ancient pot made in a tradition that goes back almost ten thousand years before that.
这化腐朽为神奇、偶然间的陶器制作，正好与人类历史上其他伟大的发展相呼应。之前的四集节目里，我一直在介绍人类是如何驯化牲畜、培育作物。因此，他们开始采用不同的方式来烹制食物，吃的方式也改变了；然后过上了一种全新的定居生活。今天，我们来到了大约七千前年的日本，来寻找一件无意间创造出来的陶器。然而制作似类陶器的历史，却可以追溯到万年之前。
The earliest dates we've got for pottery are around about 16,500 years ago, and that in itself has caused quite a fuss because this is still what most people recognise as the Old Stone Age - with people hunting big game animals. We don't really expect to find pottery quite as early as that.
“迄今为止我们发现的最早陶器大约16500年的历史。这发现本身真是一石激起千层浪呵，因为那是大家公认的旧石器时代，当时原始人类还在依靠狩猎大型野生动物谋生。我们根本没料到居然会出现那么早期的陶器。”西蒙·康尔说道。
It was in Japan that the world's first pottery was born-and with it, possibly the world's first stew.
世界上第一件陶器是在日本诞生的，也很可能相应地促成了世界第一钵炖汤的出现。
A history of the world.
世界历史，
In a hundred objects.
百件藏品，
Jomon pot, a clay pot from Japan,approximately 5,000 BC
距今约一千三百年前出土于洪都拉斯的玛雅玉米神灵石像。
You'll find pots in museums all around the world and here in the Enlightenment Gallery of the British Museum, we have pots from all over the world; Greek vases with heroes fighting on them, Ming bowls from China, pot-bellied African jars and beautiful Wedgwood tureens.
你会在世界各地的博物馆以及大英博物馆的启蒙展馆找到各种各样的盆钵锅罐；我们收藏有来自世界各地的展品，来自希腊的陶罐，上边描绘了战斗中的英雄，来自中国的明代古碗，来自非洲的大腹罐，还有美丽的韦奇伍德砂锅。
The world's pots are so ubiquitous that we take all of them for granted, but human history is told and written in pots perhaps more than in anything else; as Robert Browning put it: Time's wheel runs back or stops; potter and clay endure.
这世界上的锅碗瓢盆、罐头钵头随处可见，我们都已经习已为常了；然而这些盆盆罐罐可以讲述或记录的人类历史，却可能比其他任何物品都要多。下如罗伯特·布朗宁说的：“不管沧海桑田、时光流逝，陶器与粘土生命永恒。”
