A race against time to reveal our ancient past.

考古人员为揭开远古的奥秘争分夺秒。

 

The team from the Natural History Museum has just three days to excavate¹ this unique site.

英国自然历史博物馆的这支团队只有三天时间来挖掘这个独特的遗址。

 

The Cotswold quarry² holds a treasure trove³ of sea creatures that lived during the Jurassic period. What's here is so extraordinary, the location is being kept secret.

科茨沃尔德采石场蕴藏着大量珍贵的侏罗纪时期海洋生物化石。这里的遗迹是如此非比寻常，就连它的位置都一直被保密。

 

Tim Ewin, palaeontologist, London's Natural History Museum

We've got another really nice exceptional specimen⁴ here. It's actually a brittle⁵ star. It's likely to be a new species. It's the quality of preservation⁶. It's the number of fossils that we're finding. But it's also the diversity – it's really unprecedented⁷ in geological sites of this age across the world.

蒂姆·埃文       伦敦自然历史博物馆古生物学家

“我们在这里又发现了一个非常特别的标本。这其实是一只海蛇尾，很可能是一个新发现的物种。这里的特别之处在于化石保存质量之完好、发现的化石数量之多，但同时还有物种的多样性，在世界各地该时期的地质遗迹中是史无前例的。”

 

This area was once covered by a shallow tropical sea – living there were animals like starfish, sea urchins⁸, brittle stars and sea cucumbers. 

这个地方过去一度被热带浅海覆盖，曾经生活着海星、海胆、海蛇尾和海参等动物。

 

The site was discovered by local fossil hobbyists Nev and Sally. But at first, the quarry didn't look too promising⁹. 

该遗址是由当地的化石爱好者内夫和萨莉发现的。但一开始，这个采石场的考古价值并没有被看好。

 

Sally Hollingworth, amateur fossil hunter

We were finding very small fragments of like plates of sea urchins. Just tiny, tiny fragments, though. Nothing really spectacular. When we got it home and cleaned it up, he was like ‘Oh my God, Sally, you've got to come and see this...' And there's this beautiful Jurassic sea creature coming to life.

萨莉·霍林沃斯       业余化石搜寻者

“我们发现了海胆化石板这样的小碎片。只是很小的碎片，没什么大不了的。但当我们把它带回家清理干净后，他说：‘天啊，萨莉，你得过来看看这个……' 然后这个美丽的侏罗纪海洋生物就重现了生机。”

 

With so many fossils here, the challenge is working out which ones to keep. The very best are now heading to the Natural History Museum. The team says it's the discovery of a lifetime.

这里有这么多的化石，要决定挑选哪些来保存真的不容易。最好的化石正被运往自然历史博物馆。这支团队说，这是一次终生难遇的发现。

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