Giving children the wrong (or not enough) toys may doom a society
Survival is a case of child’s play
給孩子錯誤（或不夠）的玩具可能會毀滅一個社會
生存就像孩子們的遊戲
Dec 18th 2024
GIVERS OF EDUCATIONAL gifts, rejoice: despite the eye-rolls you may receive on Christmas morning, you are part of a long and valuable tradition. In cultures around the world, toys have been used to teach children what they need to know about the society they live in. When the toys teach the right skills, the children are prepared for adulthood and thrive. When they do not, calamity beckons.
贈送教育禮物的人們，歡欣鼓舞吧！即使在聖誕早晨可能會收到白眼，你仍然是悠久且有價值傳統的一部分。在世界各地的文化中，玩具一直被用來教導孩子了解他們生活的社會所需的知識。當玩具教導正確的技能時，孩子們就能為成年生活做好準備並茁壯成長；反之，若玩具未能達到此目的，災難可能隨之而來。
And how. New work led by Mathilde Meyer, a PhD student at Aarhus University in Denmark, and Felix Riede, her supervisor, reveals that giving the wrong toys probably played an important part in dooming the Norse settlers who came to Greenland from Iceland in 985.
確實如此。由丹麥奧胡斯大學博士生瑪蒂爾德·梅耶（Mathilde Meyer）及其導師費利克斯·里德（Felix Riede）所主導的新研究揭示，給予錯誤的玩具可能是導致985年從冰島遷至格陵蘭的北歐殖民者滅亡的重要原因之一。
Greenland was mostly covered in ice when the Norse made the journey, save for a thin strip of fertile land along the coastline where they could farm. The settlers flourished for a few hundred years but, as the world entered a cold period (known as the Little Ice Age) in 1300, records show that they started to struggle. Summers became drier, temperatures dropped and storms strengthened. By 1400 the Norse were forced to abandon the settlements. Even so, the island remained inhabited: the Inuit people of northern Alaska arrived on Greenland in 1000 and endured long after the Norse gave up.
當北歐人展開前往格陵蘭的旅程時，該地大部分都被冰覆蓋，只有沿海一條狹窄的肥沃地帶可以用來耕作。殖民者在此繁榮了數百年，但隨著世界在1300年進入一個寒冷時期（即小冰期），記錄顯示他們開始面臨困難。夏季變得更加乾燥，氣溫下降，暴風雨愈加猛烈。到1400年，北歐人被迫放棄這些定居點。即便如此，格陵蘭仍有人居住：來自阿拉斯加北部的因紐特人於1000年抵達格陵蘭，並在北歐人放棄後仍持續生存下去。
Why the Inuit survived while the Norse did not has baffled archaeologists for decades. One idea was that the Norse did not eat more seafood (as the Inuit did) when farming conditions deteriorated. But this is not backed by evidence. Isotope studies of Norse teeth show that they were turning to the ocean for food. Archaeologists agree that the Inuits adapted successfully while the Norse did not, but nobody knows why.
為何因紐特人能生存下來，而北歐人卻無法，這個問題困惑了考古學家數十年。曾有一種說法認為，當農業條件惡化時，北歐人並未像因紐特人那樣多攝取海鮮。然而，這一說法並未得到證據支持。對北歐人牙齒的同位素研究顯示，他們確實開始依賴海洋食物。考古學家一致認為，因紐特人成功適應了環境，而北歐人卻未能做到，但沒有人知道具體原因。
To try to answer that question, Ms Meyer and Dr Riede looked at as many toys as they could find that had once been played with by the children of either culture. The Norse settlements yielded 72. The Inuit settlements, located in similar environmental conditions, yielded 2,397. For the researchers, this staggering difference implies that the Inuit gave their children more toys than the Norse did.
為了嘗試回答這個問題，梅耶女士和里德博士盡可能尋找北歐人和因紐特人孩子曾經玩過的玩具。北歐人的聚落中找到72件，而處於類似環境條件的因紐特人聚落中則找到2,397件。對研究人員來說，這個巨大差異意味著因紐特人比北歐人更頻繁地給孩子玩具。
Ms Meyer and Dr Riede then assigned each toy to one of five categories. These included toys of weapons (including harpoons, arrows and swords), tools (cooking pots, lamps and saws), forms of transport (boats and sledges), for social play (dolls and figurines) and for skill play (tops and balls). They also determined approximate times for when the toys were made, either between 1000 and 1200 or 1200 and 1400.
梅耶女士和里德博士隨後將每件玩具分為五個類別，包括武器類（如魚叉、箭和劍）、工具類（如烹飪鍋、燈和鋸子）、交通工具類（如船和雪橇）、社交遊戲類（如娃娃和人偶）、以及技能遊戲類（如陀螺和球）。他們還大致確定了這些玩具的製作時期，分別為1000至1200年或1200至1400年之間。
The categorisation process revealed that the Inuit children not only had more toys available to them, but that these toys were more diverse. For example, though the Norse children had access to only toy arrows, axes and swords, the Inuit children also had toy bows, crossbows, darts, harpoons, harpoon mountings, lances and much more. Most important, Ms Meyer and Dr Riede found that the differences in the number and diversity of toys grew dramatically over time.
分類過程顯示，因紐特人的孩子不僅擁有更多的玩具，這些玩具也更加多樣化。例如，北歐孩子只能接觸到玩具箭、斧頭和劍，而因紐特孩子還有玩具弓、十字弓、飛鏢、魚叉、魚叉支架、長矛等更多種類的玩具。最重要的是，梅耶女士和里德博士發現，玩具數量和多樣性的差異隨著時間大幅增加。
Not just fun and games
They report in the European Journal of Archaeology that, although eight social-play toys were found among the Norse settlements and 23 social-play toys were found among the Inuit settlements between 1000 and 1200, over the next 200 years the gap grew to 11 social-play toys for the Norse and 158 social-play toys for the Inuit.
他們在《歐洲考古學期刊》中報告稱，儘管在1000至1200年間，北歐人聚落中發現了8件社交遊戲玩具，因紐特人聚落中則發現了23件，但在接下來的200年間，這一差距顯著擴大，北歐人的社交遊戲玩具增加至11件，而因紐特人的則達到158件。
A similar trend held for all the other categories of toy. As the years went by, toys associated with hunting at sea (a category including harpoons as well as figurines of seals and fish) became more common among the Inuit, but the Norse continued to give their children figurines of horses and birds. In essence, say the researchers, the Norse were adapting their lives to their new environment but continuing to gift old-fashioned toys.
其他玩具類別也呈現出類似的趨勢。隨著歲月流逝，與海上狩獵相關的玩具（包括魚叉以及海豹和魚的模型）在因紐特人中變得更加普遍，但北歐人依然給孩子馬和鳥的模型。研究人員表示，從本質上看，北歐人正在適應新環境的生活，但卻依然贈送過時的玩具。
Though the lack of toys may indicate that Norse society was less creative from the start, the researchers argue that their tendency to give irrelevant toys compounded any initial lack of creativity and ultimately sabotaged their survival. In contrast, the Inuits’ preference for diverse and relevant toys paved the way for their children to be more innovative and adaptive. A parable for parents if ever there was one. ■
儘管玩具的缺乏可能表明北歐社會從一開始就較缺乏創造力，研究人員認為，他們傾向於贈送不相關的玩具，這加劇了最初創造力的不足，最終破壞了他們的生存。相比之下，因紐特人對多樣且相關玩具的偏好，為孩子們的創新與適應力鋪平了道路。如果這世上有適合家長的寓言故事，那這絕對算得上一個。
雅思托福多益的同學我們來聽看看整個完整的文章
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/12/18/giving-children-the-wrong-or-not-enough-toys-may-doom-a-society
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