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Foreword

周口店第1地點是個發(fā)掘和研究接近百年的重要古人類遺址。在20世紀20年代，曾經(jīng)有一個廣為流行的關(guān)于人類起源的假說：由于喜馬拉雅山脈隆升，人類起源于中亞。周口店的發(fā)現(xiàn)為這個假說提供了支持。北京猿人第一個完整頭蓋骨的發(fā)現(xiàn)和其石制工具的確認，解決了持續(xù)三十多年的爪哇猿人是否人類的爭論，將有實物佐證的人類歷史延長到50萬年，從此北京猿人和爪哇猿人并列為人類最早的祖先。周口店第1地點又以人類化石之豐富和全面以及兼有豐富的文化遺存而尤勝一籌。

Locality 1 at Zhoukoudian is an important place of archaic hominid, where excavations and research have been conducted for nearly a century. There was a wide-spreading hypothesis on the origin of human beings in the 20s of the 20th century: Humans originated from Central Asia due to the gradual elevation of the Himalayas. The discovery of the site at Zhoukoudian has supported such a theory. The finding of the first intact skull of Sinanthropus pekinensis or Peking Man and the confirmation of their stone tools have brought a 30-year-old argumentation to an end whether or not Pithecanthropus erectus or Java Man is human, thus pushing back the substantiated human history for half a million years and putting both Peking Man and Java Man side by side on the list of earliest ancestors of human beings. Locality 1 at Zhoukoudian gets a better edge by presenting a more diversified and comprehensive array of human fossil remains with rich contents of cultural relics.

1959年，東非坦桑尼亞發(fā)現(xiàn)170萬年前的石器，將有實物佐證的人類歷史延長到了一百多萬年，周口店遺址的北京猿人在人類祖先中退居次席，但仍舊是全球早期人類遺跡最豐富的遺址。近年西班牙Atapuerca SH遺址擁有更多的人類化石，超過了周口店第1地點，但周口店第1地點在人類進化研究中仍舊具有其不可替代的重要地位。

Stone artifacts dating back to 1.7 million years ago were unearthed in Tanzania, eastern Africa in 1959, which traces the substantiated human history further back to more than 1 million years ago. Backing down from its first place on the earliest human list, Peking Man at the Locality 1 of Zhoukoudian still maintains the most profound cultural relics title of all early human remains across the world. Although more human fossil remains were discovered at the Atapuerca SH Site of Spain in recent years, Locality 1 at Zhoukoudian still holds its irreplaceable position in the study of human evolution.

在第1地點以后，龍骨山和附近又先后發(fā)現(xiàn)了山頂洞、第4地點、田園洞這些含有人化石的和另外幾處含有石器的遺址，構(gòu)成了周口店遺址群。其發(fā)掘、研究和諸多有關(guān)方面的歷史自然是人們關(guān)注的對象。從有關(guān)周口店遺址群發(fā)掘和研究的學(xué)術(shù)論文以及當時的記錄可以反映許多歷史細節(jié)。從前人的回憶錄之類的資料中也往往能窺見這個遺址群歷史的片段。周口店北京人遺址博物館組織一些老同志將他們記憶中關(guān)于這個遺址群經(jīng)歷過而又缺乏文字記錄的歷史片段以口述方式貢獻出來，形成現(xiàn)在這本文集為讀者提供許多前所未聞生動具體的細節(jié)，供后人參考。周口店遺址博物館隗建華副館長執(zhí)意請我作序，我感覺為難，因為一件關(guān)于周口店的懸案久久不能釋懷:周口店遺址群第一件人類化石出土這樣重大事件發(fā)生的年份在文獻上曾有著不同的說法。根據(jù)Davidson Black（步達生）等所著1933年出版的Fossil Man in China（《中國原人史要》)第7頁所載，這個遺址的第一顆人牙化石是1923年出土的（原文中譯：在1923年的發(fā)掘中，師丹斯基博士從周口店的洞穴堆積物中發(fā)現(xiàn)了在當時被他認為屬于類人猿的一顆磨耗了的，石化了的人科臼齒），而根據(jù)賈蘭坡等1984年所著《周口店發(fā)掘記》則記載為在1921年發(fā)掘時就發(fā)現(xiàn)了一顆很可疑的牙齒（第15頁，從上下文可以肯定其所指是周口店出土的第一顆人牙化石）。孰是孰非，令人困惑。上述二書的作者雖然都不是事件的親歷者，但是步達生1926或1927年到周口店，賈蘭坡1931年到周口店，都不能肯定沒有與親歷者交流的機會。

After Locality 1, successive sites were discovered around it like Upper Cave, Locality 4, Tianyuan Cave which have yielded human fossils and some other sites associated with stone artefacts, forming a site group at Zhoukoudian. The excavations, researches and other history of these sites naturally draw peoples eyeballs. A whole lot of historic details can be mirrored through academic papers and logbooks on the excavation and research of the site group at Zhoukoudian. People are also able to catch a glimpse of the history of the site group from the literature of the predecessors such as their memoirs. Zhoukoudian Site Museum has asked some of its veterans to orally contribute vivid and unprecedented details from their memory what the Site Group went through in this great collection for its future readers. Wei Jianhua, Deputy Director of Zhoukoudian Site Museum, insisted inviting me to write the foreword, which makes me hesitant because I have been bothered about a cold case of Zhoukoudian literature differs in the year when the first ancient human fossil was unearthed -- an event of great historical importance. According to the statement While excavating in 1923 Dr. Otto Zdansky recovered from the Choukoutien cave deposit a worn and fossilized hominid molar tooth which he recognized at the time of its discovery as being anthropomorphic on page 7 in the 1933 edition of Fossil Man in China written by Davison Black, the first fossilized human molar which was unearthed from this site happened in 1923. However, based on Excavations Zhoukoudian written by Jia Lanpo and his colleague in 1984, a highly suspicious tooth was found in the excavation that took place in 1921 (p. 15, from the context the tooth means the first human tooth fossil unearthed at Zhoukoudian). It is pretty confusing as to who is right and who is wrong. Neither of the authors was able to witness the event. Nevertheless, Davison Black visited Zhoukoudian either in 1926 or 1927 and Jia Lanpo came to the same site in 1931. So, we cannot be positive that neither had the chance to talk to the person(s) involved.

上述例子使我想到，不是在事件發(fā)生當時所寫，而是后來由不同作者追記的文字中有時難免出現(xiàn)互相矛盾的敘述。我沒有時間和精力通覽本書，更不能進行考證，不敢對其中記述的諸多細節(jié)妄加評論和褒貶，只能給一些建議如下: 請編者提請各位口述者務(wù)必仔細校核文字，避免在錄音轉(zhuǎn)換為文字過程中出現(xiàn)有違其本意之處甚至錯誤，鑒于上述第一顆人牙出土年份的懸案，我敦請讀者不要忽略這樣的事實:口述者包括我本人在內(nèi)多已進入耄耋之年，難免有記憶不甚準確甚至失實之處。其所述內(nèi)容雖然是值得參考的資料，但不可全都當作信史轉(zhuǎn)述，否則可能會給后人徒增困擾。讀者如發(fā)現(xiàn)本書文字有互相矛盾或與事件發(fā)生當時的記載或客觀的信史不能兼容時，請考慮先賢儒家亞圣孟子的名言：盡信書不如無書。盡力進行理性思考。如果讀者能在這些口述者尚未離世時把發(fā)現(xiàn)的疑問提出來，將有助于使其得到澄清，避免產(chǎn)生新的懸案，讓這本文集起到更大的正面作用，盡量減少乃至避免產(chǎn)生負面的影響。

I may conclude from the above cases that contradictory descriptions may occur in the aftermath of an event which is not logged in time. I am not in a position to comment on the details in this book due to my limited time, energy and possibility of verifying the facts, what I can do is to offer the following advice: As an editor, you need to caution the narrator that great care must be taken to proofread the literature so as to avoid possible deviations from the original text or even mistakes in the process of switching recordings to writings. In views of the uncertainty of the year in which the above-mentioned human tooth fossil was discovered, I would strongly suggest to the readers that never neglect the fact that discrepancies or even distortion can happen to the memory of narrators in very old age including me myself. What they have stated can be of great value for reference but should never be 100% passed on to others as truth. Otherwise, it might cause confusion among people of our future generations. If the reader finds the literature in this book is self-contradictory or what is stated in this book is incompatible with actual events or facts, please bear in mind the famous motto of Mencius To believe everything said in the book is worse than to have no books at all. Try rational thinking. If the reader is able to raise his/her doubts discovered in the book before the narrators pass, it will certainly be beneficial for all his/her doubts to be cleared without their running into some new ones down the road. May this collection bring more positive rather than negative impact on all our readers!