A much coined phrase of recent years is that the centre of the civilised world is moving eastward. And that may not just be true for today, it may also turn out that this part of the world is from where we all came.
近年来，一个经常被创造的短语是，文明世界的中心正在向东移动。 这可能不仅仅是今天，也可能被原本世界的这一部分就是我们所有人的原因。
Politics aside, Chinese scientists have had much reason to contend that the origins of humanity lie closer to the Middle Kingdom than conventional wisdom would have it.
撇开政治不谈，中国科学家有很多理由争辩说，人类的起源比传统智慧更接近中王国。
Fundamental to their theory are transitional fossils.
過渡化石是他們理論的基礎。
But first comes a mystery hitherto unsolved. The local fossil record shows that between 125,000 and as long as 900,000 years ago, this part of the world was teeming with a subspecies of archaic human who had features more akin to people today than those found elsewhere.
但首先是一个尚未解开的谜团。 当地的化石记录显示，在125,000至90万年前，世界这一地区充斥着一种古老的人类亚种，其特征比其他地方更像今天的人。
Russell Ciochon, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Iowa in the USA has studied the issue extensively, reported Scientific American in 2016. “Those fossils are a big mystery”, he said. “They clearly represent more advanced species than H. erectus, but nobody knows what they are because they don’t seem to fit into any categories we know.”
据2016年《科学美国人》报道，美国爱荷华大学的古人类学家Russell Ciochon对这个问题进行了广泛的研究。 他说：“那些化石是个大谜。” “它们显然代表了比直立人更先进的物种，但没有人知道它们是什么，因为它们似乎不符合我们所知道的任何类别。”
As such, 40 years of analysis has given considerable pause to the argument that the “upright man”, Homo Erectus, found in Africa progressed to become Homo Sapien, the modern human.
因此，40年的分析大大停止了在非洲发现的“直截了当的人”直立体逐渐成为现代人的智人这一论点。
But the fossil record here is less complete than in other parts of the world.
但这里的化石记录不如世界其他地方完整。
We do, however, have the Dali Man. This near-complete skull was discovered in 1978 in Dali in Shanxi Province. Dating back 250,000 years, the skull has a bigger neurocranium, shorter face and lower cheekbone than most subspecies’ specimens.
然而，我们确实有大理人。 这个近乎完整的头骨是1978年在山西省大理发现的。 头骨可以追溯到25万年前，与大多数亚种标本相比，头骨的神经颅骨更大，脸部更短，颧骨更低。
In short, the Dali man was more advanced.
简而言之，大理人更先进。
Even older than him are the Yunxian Skulls. Discovered in 1989 and 1990 in Yunxian County of Shiyan City in Hubei Province, the two damaged but relatively-complete adult specimens were determined to be between 350,000 and 500,000 years old.
甚至比他更老的是云仙头骨。 1989年和1990年在湖北省十堰市云仙县发现的这两个受损但相对完整的成年标本被确定为35万至50万年。
Again, there are many facial and basicranial anatomical details that have been rarely seen in similar findings of the same age. This prompted Chris Stringer, a palaeoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum in London, to suggest that the subspecies may have actually originated in Asia and then spread to other continents.
同样，有许多面部和基本解剖细节在同龄的类似发现中很少见。 这促使伦敦自然历史博物馆的古人类学家Chris Stringer认为，该亚种实际上可能起源于亚洲，然后传播到其他大陆。
But the kicker was to come in 2007. In Zhiren Cave in the Mulan Mountains of southerly Guangxi Province was found two teeth and a lower jawbone. Such were their modern traits many researchers chose to classify them as Homo Sapien.
但踢球者将于2007年到来。 在广西南部木兰山的智仁洞，发现了两颗牙齿和下颌骨。 这就是他们的现代特征，许多研究人员选择将它们归类为智人。
The Chinese scientific community, unsurprisingly, therefore believes that these finds point to modern humans first evolving in Asia.
因此，毫不奇怪，中国科学界认为这些发现表明现代人首先在亚洲进化。
Charles Darwin, on the other hand, thought that our closest relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, were only found in Africa. But again, the fossil record lets us down and perhaps we will never know our true origins. Just how far eastward is the centre of the civilised world?
另一方面，查尔斯·达尔文认为，我们最亲密的亲戚黑猩猩和大猩猩只在非洲发现。 但同样，化石记录让我们失望了，也许我们永远不会知道我们真正的起源。 文明世界的中心到底往东有多远？
“Asia has been a forgotten continent”, said Stringer. “Its role in human evolution may have been largely under-appreciated.”
Stringer说：“亚洲一直是一个被遗忘的大陆。” “它在人类进化中的作用可能在很大程度上被低估了。”