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Human evolution 人类进化史 You look familiar 似曾相识 Another piece of humanity s family tree is fitted into place 南方古猿sediba的发现填补了人类家族谱系的关键空白 THE opening scene of Mel Brooks s film History of the World: Part One dispenses withhuman origins in one line: And the ape stood, and became man. 梅尔布鲁克斯执导的电影 世界史：序幕 开场仅用一句话就概括了人类起源： 类人猿直立起来，变成了人类。 Would that it were that easy for palaeontologists to sort out. 要是古生物学家也能如此轻而易举地阐释人类进化的奥秘就好了。 The transition to humanity is generally agreed to have occurred between Australopithecus,a genus of small-brained, bipedal primates whose most famous member is a fossil nicknamed Lucy , and the big-brained species Homo erectus. 人们普遍认为人类是由南方古猿和直立人之间的某个物种演化而来。南方古猿头部较小，属双足灵长类动物，其最有名的家族成员是一具被称做 露西 的化石，比较而言，直立人的头部就大多了。 But pinning down when precisely this took place, and which of the various australopithecinespecies were involved, has been challenging. | 
