经济学人下载:时间机器解密 新石器时代的繁荣期

The Neolithic
新石器时代

Boom-time machine
时间机器解密:新石器时代的繁荣期

A new technique lets archaeologists reconstruct the past in greater detail
考古新技术让考古专家们能更加详尽地重构远古原貌

Building site, 3670BC
公元前3670年的建筑遗址

THAT economic expansion leads to building booms seems to have been as true 6,000 years ago as it is now. When agriculture came to Britain, it led to a surge of construction as impressive—and rapid—as the one that followed the industrial revolution.

在经济扩张时期,人们往往喜欢大兴土木。如今的这条经济定律在6000年前似乎也同样适用。随着农业在英国生根萌芽，建筑业也随之蓬勃兴旺，其发展速度之快，令人印象之深刻毫不逊色于英国工业革命之后的那次农业变革。

Which is all a bit of a surprise to archaeologists, who had previously seen the arrival of the Neolithic as a rather gentle thing. But that may be because of the tools they use. Radiocarbon dating provides a range, often spanning 200 years or more, rather than an exact date for a site. Stratigraphy, which looks at the soil layers in which artefacts are found, tells you only which ones are older and which younger. None of these data is precise. They do, however, limit the possible range of dates. And by using a statistical technique called Bayesian analysis it is possible to combine such disparate pieces of information to produce a consolidated estimate that is more accurate than any of its components. That results in a range that spans decades, not centuries.

这一切让考古学家们显得有些惊讶，他们之前一直认为新石器时代是经济发展较为和缓的时期。不过这可能是由于他们使用的考古技术方法还不够先进。采用放射性碳技术来测定一处考古遗址的年代，得到的并不是一个准确日期，而是一个时间跨度范围通常为200年或更久远的数值。而地层学采用的方法是通过对已发现古代文物的土壤层进行探测分析，从而判断土壤年代的远近。这种方法得出的数据也都不精确。然而它们确实是缩短了可能估算的时间跨度。通过贝叶斯分析的统计方法，这些分散孤立的信息可能被整合成一个可靠详实的估计数值，这比单一研究其中的任何一条信息都更为精确。采用地层学断代推算出的时间范围是几十年，而不是几百年。

A team led by Alex Bayliss, from English Heritage, a British government agency, has just used this technique to examine digs from hundreds of sites around Britain. The results have caused them to reinterpret the Neolithic past quite radically.

Alex Bayliss领导的研究小组来自于英国政府机构的古迹署，他们刚刚采用这项技术对英国周围几百处的人工挖凿遗址进行了研究。这些成果可以让他们更为彻底地重新诠释新石器时代。