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Standing atop a small dune deep in the Sahara Desert, a team of scientists stared at a freshly opened grave.
在撒哈拉沙漠深处，一队科学家站在一座小沙丘上，盯着一座刚打开的坟墓。
Three human skeletons lay on their sides, as though they'd drifted off to sleep in the loose brown sand and never awakened.
三具人类骸骨侧躺着，彷佛在松软的褐色沙子里坠入梦乡，再也没有醒来。
It was just before dusk during the last days of an expedition to a place called Gobero, located in Niger's Ténéré desert.
黄昏将至，这是一趟远征的最后几天，造访的地方是格伯托，位于尼日尔的泰内雷沙漠。
Often described as a desert within a desert, the Ténéré is almost completely devoid of rain and defined by monumental seas of shifting sand known as ergs.
经常有人把泰内雷描述成沙漠中的沙漠，这里几乎完全没有降雨，主宰地貌的是变动中的巨大沙海，称为沙质荒漠。
Here the temperature regularly exceeds 120°F, blinding sandstorms can blow in without warning, and Nigerien authorities require a platoon of soldiers to accompany visitors to guard against bandits.
此地气温经常超过120华氏度，可以无预警就掀起沙尘暴，而尼日尔当局会要求一排士兵陪同旅客，以防范盗匪。
But this barren landscape also holds one of the world's rarest archaeological sites, a graveyard dating back almost 10,000 years.
但这片荒漠景致也保存了全世界难得一见的考古遗址：一座距今将近1万年前的墓地。
That morning a college student named Hannah Moots, using a small wooden pick and brush, had begun excavating a skull, its crown barely peeking out of the ground.
那天早上，一名名叫汉娜·莫兹的大学生拿着小型的木制鹤嘴锄和刷子，开始挖掘一个头骨，它的头顶只露出地面一点点。
Working carefully, she'd exposed the eye sockets and jaw and continued down the neck to find the shoulder, then followed the arm to a cluster of finger bones.
她小心处理，让眼窝和颔骨露出来，继续沿颈部往下找到肩膀，然后沿着手臂到一串指骨。
But there she stopped: There were too many finger bones for just one body.
但至此她停了下来：只有一具遗体的话，那些指骨太多了。
Paul Sereno, the expedition's leader, joined Moots, and soon they'd uncovered more bones -- many more.
远征队的领队保罗·塞雷诺加入了莫兹的工作，然后他们很快就发现了更多骨头--很多很多。
Oumarou Idé, a Nigerien archaeologist working nearby, came over to see the progress.
在附近工作的尼日尔考古学家欧乌玛鲁·伊德过来查看进度。
Throughout the afternoon, other members of the team, their skin sunburned and clothes grimed with salt stains, gravitated to the dune.
整个下午，皮肤晒得通红、衣物因为流汗而沾满盐渍的团队其他成员，都被这座沙丘吸引了过来。
Even some of the soldiers, cradling their rifles, came over to see what was going on.
甚至有几位土兵抱着步枪跑来看是怎么回事。
Finally, as the light softened and the desert air cooled, a startling picture came fully into view.
最后，等到阳光变得柔和、沙漠空气凉爽下来时，映入眼帘的是一幅惊人的景象。
The pelvis of one skeleton indicated it was a woman. Facing her were two children. Their teeth gave their ages to be about five and seven years old.
有一副骨骸的骨盆显示它是女性。面对她的是两名孩童，他们的牙齿透露出年纪约是五岁和七岁。
The five-year-old was clinging to the older child, holding on with a tiny arm draped across the seven-year-old's neck.
五岁孩子紧抓着大一点的孩子，小小的手臂挂在七岁孩子的脖子上。
The woman's right arm curled under the older child's head. Her left arm reached out and connected with the left hand of the five-year-old in the jumbled mass of finger bones.
女子的右手臂弯曲枕在大孩子的头部下面。她的左手臂伸出去，与五岁孩子的左手相连，指骨混杂在一起。
"They're holding hands," someone murmured.
“他们牵着手。”有人喃喃说着。
The scene raised many questions: Was this a mother and her children? Who buried them in this tender embrace? And how did they die?
这个场景引发许多问题：这是一位母亲和她的孩子吗？谁把他们以这种温柔的拥抱姿势入葬？还有他们是怎么死的？
To have been arranged so precisely, the three would have had to perish at nearly the same time and been posed in these positions before rigor mortis set in.
要安置得这么精准，三个人必须几乎在同一时间死去，而且要趁尸体开始僵直之前摆好这些姿势。
Was it a sudden tragedy or some sort of ritual sacrifice?
这是突发的悲剧，还是为了仪式而做的某种牺牲？
No cause of death was apparent—their teeth and bones signaled good health and betrayed no signs of trauma.
无法找到明确的死因，他们的牙齿和骨头都显示健康良好，也没有外伤的迹象。
But without soft tissue to examine, it was impossible to say how three seemingly healthy people died simultaneously.
但没有软组织能够检验，就无从得知这三位看似健康的人是以何种方式同时死去。
"Maybe," Sereno said, "they drowned."
“说不定，”塞雷诺说，“他们是溺死的。”
I was among those gathered on that dune in 2006, on assignment for National Geographic.
我也在2006年聚集于沙丘的那群人之中，受到《国家地理》杂志的指派前去探访。
Nearly two decades later, now with two children of my own, I'm still enthralled by the mystery of that scene.
将近20年后的今天，我自己也有了两个孩子，那个场景的重重谜团依然令我深深着迷。
But it's just one of many mysteries that have emerged from that place since then.
不过从那以后，那个地方浮现了许多神秘现象，这只是其中之一。
Just as the Ténéré is a desert within a desert, Gobero is a scientific enigma within an enigma, one that has obsessed Sereno, Idé, and many others who continue to glean clues, teasing out a rich picture of a lost world.
就像泰内雷是沙漠中的沙漠，格伯托是科学上的谜中之谜，让塞雷诺、伊德和许多其他科学家念念不忘，持续采集各种线索，为一个失落的世界拼凑出丰富的图像。
So when Sereno called in 2022, soon after the pandemic lockdown had lifted, and offered me the chance to go back to Gobero, I said yes.
因此塞雷诺在2022年疫情刚解封之际打电话来问我要不要重返格伯托的时候，我说好。
