About day four, we realized that there was nothing in this chamber but hominids.

大约在第四天的时候，我们意识到，这间屋子里除了人科动物，什么都没有。

One area of paleoanthropological study involves the eating and dietary habits of hominids, erect bipedal primates—including early humans.

古人类学研究的一个领域涉及原人（双脚直立行走的灵长类动物，包括早期人类）的惯。

The Asian hominids would have had to appear, as it were, spontaneously.

可以说，除非亚洲的人科动物是发出现的。

At no time since hominids first arose on Earth has Australia not been an island.

从人科动物第一次在地球上出现以来，澳大利亚就一直是一块孤立的陆地。

We know less about ourselves, curiously enough, than about almost any other line of hominids.

很有意思的是，我们对己的了解，少于对人科动物几乎任何别的分支的了解。

For a time, it appears, Homo erectus was the only hominid species on Earth.

在一段时期内，直立人似乎是地球上惟一的人属。

To other hominids, Homo erectus must have seemed terrifyingly powerful, fleet, and gifted.

在其他人科动物的眼里，直立人肯定显得个儿大、有力、和有才干。

But anthropologists theorize that early hominids relied on lightning to cause forest fires, from which they could collect coals and burning sticks.

但是人类学家推论早期原始人依赖闪电引起森林大火，从而收取煤和燃烧的枝干。

It has these very different hands than any kind of hominid we've ever seen before, with those long, curved fingers.

它的手和我们以前见过的任何一种人科动物的手都不一样，有着又长又弯曲的手指。

I found my first hominid — one-in-ten-million chance — my first day. It was completely — I was hooked.

我发现了我的第一个人科动物化石——千万分之一的机会——我第一天就发现了。我完全被迷住了。

But there is also an uncomfortable overlap with the rise of a certain hominid species originating in Africa 150,000 years ago.

另一个双重效应就是15万年前某些原于非洲的原始人种的进化。

By the 1950s, the number of named hominid types had risen to comfortably over a hundred.

到20世纪50年代，被命名的人种动物名称已达100种以上。

These hominids walked across a stretch of moist volcanic ash, which was subsequently turned to mud by rain, and which then set like concrete.

这些类人动物走过潮湿的火山灰，经过连绵大雨，火山灰变成了泥浆并点燃。

Only when these hominids had to travel between arboreal habitats would they find themselves walking bipedally, 'forced' to do so by their own anatomies.

“只有当这些人科动物在两棵树上的栖息地之间来回穿梭时，他们才不得不用两足来行走。由于他们骨骼的结构特点，他们是‘被迫’这么做的。”

There, sitting on this photograph, was a jawbone that I could see was a primitive hominid, but it was just lying there on the floor.

那张照片上有一个下巴骨，我可以看到是一个原始人科动物的下巴骨，但它就这样放在地上。

An upright hominid could see better, but could also be seen better.

直立行走的人科动物看得更清楚，但也被看得更清楚。

I had looked at body proportions, but I had not made major hominid discoveries because they are just that rare.

我曾研究过身体比例，但是我对人科动物没有重大的发现，因为它们实在是太罕见了。

Two years after Lucy's discovery, at Laetoli in Tanzania Mary Leakey found footprints left by two individuals from-it is thought-the same family of hominids.

在发现露西后两年，在坦桑尼亚的莱托里，玛丽·利基发现了被认为是来同一家族的两个人科动物的一串脚印。

No persuasive reason has ever been adduced for why hominid brains suddenly began to grow two million years ago.

没有任何原因足以说明为什，么200万年前人科动物的大脑突然开始增大。

John Thorbjarnarson knew he could not end men's fear of crocodilians, hard-wired since hominids first ventured down from the trees into swamps that seethed with them.

约翰•瑟布贾纳森知道，人类首次冒险从树上直接落入鳄鱼渲腾的沼泽中以来，他不可能终结人们对鳄鱼的恐惧。