是否好赌竟由遗传基因决定?

　　Many of us have plenty of leisuretime to devote to trying out the latest Wii game or even watching others play pokeron TV. But this focus on play is nothing new, says a researcher at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg.

　　很多人闲来无事都会在电视机上玩玩新出的Wii游戏，闲到看人家玩扑克的也有。瑞典哥德堡大学的一名研究人员称，人们虽然相当热衷于游戏，但这可不是什么新鲜事儿。

　　For her doctoral thesis, Elke Rogersdotter studied a 4,000-year-old city called Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley, in what is now Pakistan. ["Gaming in Mohenjo-daro—an Archaeology of Unities"] It was the largest Bronze Age urban settlement in the region, thriving at the same time as the ancient Egyptian Middle Kingdom.

　　为完成博士论文，艾尔克·罗杰斯多特考察了印度河流域有着4000年历史的古城摩亨佐-达罗，它位于现在的巴基斯坦境内。摩亨佐-达罗是铜器时代印度河流域最大的城市，当时也正是古埃及中王国兴盛时期。

　　Play is not generally studied for its significance to ancient peoples. Rogersdotter says that archaeologistsdo often find game-related relics at dig sites, but they’re usually discounted as unimportant or considered a ritualobject. But at this site, almost every tenth find was related to leisure—dice or gaming pieces.

　　游戏对于祖先的重要性往往被研究人员所忽视。罗杰斯多特说，考古学家确实挖掘出了一些和游戏相关的文物，但他们通常认为这些物品没什么价值，或者认为它们是祭祀用品。但在这个遗址，几乎每十项发现中的一项就和游戏有关——色子或是棋子。

　　And they’re not uniformly scattered. The artifacts are clustered together in what might have been ancient, say, gaming halls or courtyards. Rogersdotter says that these games may have had real social significance and might be used to give us a better view of the lives of these Bronze Age individuals. Who very well might have hoped to roll double-sixes four millenniaago.

　　它们不是均匀分散的，而是集中分布在一个古代游戏厅里。罗杰斯多特说这些游戏可能具有相当的社会价值，并可能为我们研究这些铜器时代祖先的生活提供一个良好的视角。祖先们可是在4000年前就盼着掷出个双六来了~