During the last ice age, the northern half of North America was blanketed by ice. But along the Pacific coast of Canada, some land remained bare…a place where animals and plants could thrive. And humans too.

　　在冰河时代末期，北美洲北半部被冰块覆盖。但是，在加拿大太平洋沿岸，一些土地仍然是裸露的....那里是动植物生存的地方，同样生存的还有人类。

　　Archaeologists have found stone tools and cave sites 12,000 to 13,000 years old in the coastal Pacific Northwest. One find was a mastodon rib with a bony weapon in it. And now scientists at the Hakai Institute and the University of Victoria have made a spectacular discovery: clay soil, trampled by human feet—the oldest footprints uncovered in North America.

　　考古学家在太平洋西北沿海地区发现了12000至13000年前的石器和洞穴遗址。 这一发现是带有骨骼武器的乳齿肋骨。现在Hakai研究所和维多利亚大学的科学家们，有了一个惊人的发现：这些粘土有人的脚印踩踏过——这是北美发现的最古老的脚印。

　　Researchers were digging several feet below a modern-day beach on British Columbia’s Calvert Island, about 250 miles northwest of Vancouver, when they discovered tracks. They found 29 in all. Some had toes, arches and heel prints—indicating the people who left them were probably barefoot. And using a shoe size measurement chart—like the ones you find in a shoe store—they determined that the footprints likely belonged to a child and two adults. Who lived and walked the area some 13,000 years ago.

　　这些足迹是研究人员在当今的不列颠哥伦比亚省卡尔弗特岛下挖几英尺时发现的，该岛距离温哥华西北约250英里。他们共发现了29个。有些是有脚趾，足弓和脚跟印迹，这就意味着留下这些足迹的人可能是赤脚的，并且，使用鞋子尺寸测量表——就像你能在鞋店里找到的一样——他们确定脚印很有可能属于一个孩子和两个成年人。大约在13000年前，他们曾住在这里并路过这个区域。

　　The results are in the journal PLOS ONE. [Duncan McLaren et al., Terminal Pleistocene epoch human footprints from the Pacific coast of Canada]

　　这一研究结果发表在PLOS ONE杂志上。[Duncan McLaren等人，加拿大太平洋海岸的终端有新世时代人类足迹]

　　The tracks are not in a line, like the famous Laetoli footprints in Tanzania. Instead, they’re facing different directions, suggestive of people gathering. Or perhaps, the authors write, they could be the footprints of people getting out of a boat, headed towards higher and drier land. Still on the move.

　　这些脚印并不是一条直线的，就像坦桑尼亚有名的Laetoli足迹。相反，他们有着不同的方向，这表明人们可能在聚会。作者写道，这也或许是人们走出船只的脚印，走向更高更干燥的土地，仍然在走动。