距今4000年! 青藏高原發現首個史前洞穴遺址!

A cave site containing fragile stone tools and pottery shards believed to be at least 4,000 years old was recently unearthed in Ngari Prefecture, Southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region.

最近，一個洞穴遺址在中國西南部西藏自治區的阿里地區被發現，洞穴裏面發現一些碎石器和陶器碎片，據考證至少有4000年的歷史。

The Melong Tagphug cave site, with two caves of 1,000 square meters and 250 square meters, is situated about 4,600 meters above sea level.

梅龍達普洞穴遺址位於海拔約4600米處，兩處洞穴面積分別爲1000平方米和250平方米。

It is the first prehistoric cave site found on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

這是在青藏高原上發現的第一個史前洞穴遺址。

"Besides abundant cultural relics and animal bones, ochre rock paintings with geometric patterns, human figurines, palms and the sun were also found," said He Wei, an archaeologist from Tibet's institute of cultural relics protection.

西藏文物保護研究所考古學家賀偉表示：“洞穴裏除了有豐富的文物和動物骨骼外，還發現了繪有幾何圖案、人像、手掌和太陽的礦石巖畫。”

The excavation, which will continue in 2019, was carried out by a joint archaeological team from the regional cultural relics conservation institute and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

洞穴的發掘工作將在2019年由中國科學院區域文物保護研究所和脊椎動物古生物學及古人類研究所的一個考古聯合小組繼續進行。

The discovery sheds light on human activities, environment change, origins of agriculture and animal husbandry and prehistoric art on the plateau, archaeologists said.

考古學家表示，這一發現揭示了人類活動、環境變化、農業和畜牧業的起源，以及高原地區的史前藝術。

In November, archaeologists found thousands of stone artifacts at a paleolithic site in Tibet, indicating that humans might have conquered one of the highest and most ecologically-challenging places on the globe at least 30,000 years ago.

去年11月，考古學家在西藏的一箇舊石器時代的遺址發現了數千件石製品，這表明人類可能在至少3萬年前就曾征服了全球最高、最具生態挑戰的地區。