Anyone choosing a hundred objects to tell a history of the world would have to include a handaxe.

任何人企图选择百件物品来讲叙一段世界历史的，这石斧肯定是必选之物。

Simply watching a practised knapper at work shows just how many skills the maker of our handaxe must have possessed.

仅仅观看一个熟手石器专家工作，就想而知我们这把石斧的制造者得拥有多高的技艺了。

But its beneath these clays that a local who was walking his dog found a handaxe, embedded in these organic sediments.

某天一个当地人在溜狗时，无意发现在一把手斧镶嵌在这些粘泥层下的有机沉积物中。

But is there one last secret in the stone? Our handaxe is just a bit too large to use easily.

然而这块石头中究竟还蕴藏着哪一个终级秘密呢？我们这块手斧就是个头有点过大点儿，使用不方便。

But this handaxe may contain the evidence of something even more remarkable. Does this chipped stone tool hold the secret of speech?

然而这块石斧可能也蕴藏着其他更加不可寻常的证据。这块打制石器是否隐藏着语言的秘密？

A handaxe like this was the Swiss Army knife of the Stone Age - an essential piece of technology with multiple uses.

诸如以类的手斧就是石器时代的瑞士军刀，一种多功能多用途的必备良品。

But for most of human history, there was only one thing that you really needed in order to travel - a stone handaxe.

但是在人类历史上的多数阶段，你旅行中真正需要的可能仅仅是一把石制手斧。

What next? The handaxe is about to accompany us on a huge journey; because with all these skills, were no longer tied to our immediate environment.

下一步呢？这手斧将伴随着我们继续我们的伟大征途，因为拥有这些技能，我们将不再依赖于眼前的直接环境。

We dont really know why humans colonised Britain at this time, but perhaps it was due to the effectiveness of this new technology that we call the handaxe.

我们真不知道人类当时为什么在英国土地上生息繁衍，然而大概也是因为手斧这种有效的新兴技术吧。”

If you can make a decent handaxe like this one, its a good bet that youre well on the way to something we would all recognise as society.

假如你有能力制造出那么体面的手斧，那么我敢打赌当已经相当具有某些我们现代社会能够认可的共性。

I am holding a handaxe now, The Olduvai Gorge handaxe now. It doesnt, of course, look anything like a modern axe - theres no handle and theres no metal blade.

奥杜威峡谷手斧肯定外表同现代斧头是两回事，既没有手柄，也没有金属刀刃。

And what we would do then, is actually thin the piece down and refine the shape, work our way round ... and in about 10 to 15 minutes, theres your handaxe.

接下来我们就把这里细细削薄，沿着边缘一圈削下来… … 这样加工上大概十到十五分钟，你的手斧就出来了。”

And then the handaxe is so pleasing to the eye as well as to the hand, that its hard not to ask if it wasnt to some extent made quite intentionally to be a thing of beauty.

然而这手斧是看上去多么的赏心悦目，拿到手上又多么的玲珑精致，使得我们不由而然地思考是否在某程度上，它是为了呈现美感而制作的。

But this comes from a higher geological layer than the chopping tool, and theres a huge leap between those earliest first stone tools and this handaxe, because I think its in this tool that we find the real beginnings of modern humans.

但这石斧出土的地质层比那砍砸器更晚一些，而且两者之间存在着最大的质的飞跃，因为我觉得这石斧才正是现代人类的真正开端。