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I'm a paleontologist, which means I have what I'm told is every seven-year-old's dream job.
我是一名古生物学家，我知道这是每一位七岁小朋友的梦想职业。
But I don't spend my time digging up the remains of dead animals.
但我不是花大把时间挖掘动物遗骸，
Instead, I'm on the trail of clues left by dinosaurs and other extinct animals when they were active and very much alive.
而是寻找恐龙和其他已灭绝动物存活时留下的痕迹。
If I were to share with you some tracking tips, could you also become master trackers and find these same clues? Why not?
如果我与大家分享一些追踪的小提示，你能成为追踪大师，找出这些线索吗？为什么不呢？
Fifty years ago, most paleontologists thought that fossil footprints, which we also call trace fossils, were rare and unimportant.
50 多年前，很多古生物学家认为化石足迹，也名叫“遗迹化石”，是罕见且无价值的。
In fact, some scientific journals actually rejected papers on fossil footprints without even sending them out for review.
实际上，有些科学期刊拒收了研究化石足迹的论文，甚至不将其送去评审。
And this was because at that time, it was mostly all about bones.
这是因为当时基本都是关于骨化石。
And you can see this by just looking at how many dinosaur skeletons there are in museums around the world.
看看世界各地的博物馆里放着多少具恐龙骨架就很明显了。
But sometimes these bones don't tell us quite as much as we might think.
但有时这些骨头并不能告诉我们所想象那么多的信息。
Take a look at your own body.
看看你自己的身体。
You've got one skeleton, right?
你也有骨架，对吧？
But how much could we really learn about you and all your day-to-day activities just by looking at your bones alone?
但是你对自己和日常活动的了解有多少仅仅是通过研究你的骨头得出的？
Not much, perhaps.
也许没多少吧。
Fossil footprints, therefore, help us to bring these bones alive.
所以，化石足迹使我们得以让这些骨头重获新生。
They are the nearest thing we really have to motion pictures or movies of extinct animals.
它们是最接近灭绝动物真实影像的东西。
So there's a big difference between the study of fossil footprints or trace fossils and bones.
研究化石足迹和遗迹化石与骨化石之间有着很大的区别。
For example, imagine a dinosaur track site the size of a football field with 5,000 or maybe even 10,000 fossil footprints.
比如，想象有一个足球场这么大的恐龙遗址，有五千甚至一万个化石足迹。
This is direct evidence of the activity of dozens, possibly hundreds of dinosaurs going about their daily activity.
这是好多头，也许是上百头恐龙日常在此活动的明显证据。
Sites like this give us dinosaur detectives the ultimate CSI challenge.
这样的遗址是我们“恐龙侦探”的终极“犯罪现场调查”挑战。
And so it's no wonder that the famous Sherlock Holmes once said,
那么著名的夏洛克·福尔摩斯曾经这样说便不奇怪了，
“There’s no branch of detective science so important and so much neglected as the art of tracing footsteps.” He understood.
“侦探学的各个分支中，没有比追踪足迹这项技术更重要却被人忽略的了。”他是理解的。
He fully understood the importance of fossil footprints in reconstructing the activity and behavior of track makers that had left the scene of the crime.
他完全理解化石足迹在还原已经离开案发现场的目标活动与行为中的重要性。
Fossil footprints bring animals back to life, then.
化石足迹使得动物“复活“。
Today, I'm on the trail of a T-Rex, tomorrow I'm tracking a Stegosaurus.
目前，我在追踪一只霸王龙，明天，我又去追踪剑龙。
The living animal can walk, run, hop, skip, jump, dig a burrow, excavate a nest.
活的动物能奔走跑跳、钻洞、造窝。
Tracks will tell us the direction an animal's going in, whether it was small or large, a juvenile or an adult.
足迹可以告诉我们一只动物的去向，不论是小是大、幼年还是成年。
Tracks of fast-moving dinosaurs can even tell us that they could out-sprint Usain Bolt at 30 miles per hour.
敏捷恐龙的足迹甚至能够显示它们以每小时 30 英里的速度超过尤塞恩·博尔特 (Usain Bolt)。
Tracks may also tell us if an animal was limping or injured or whether it was traveling alone or in a group.
足迹也能告诉我们一只动物是否是跛脚，受伤的，是独自出行还是集体行动。
Tracks, therefore played a pivotal role in what we call the dinosaur renaissance of recent years.
所以，足迹在我们近年来所谓的“恐龙文艺复兴”中扮演了至关重要的角色。
This is when dinosaurs got a sophisticated makeover and they were no longer regarded as stupid, defunct failures.
这时，恐龙被重新认识，不再是愚蠢、无能的次品；
Instead, they were transformed into dynamic, athletic, intelligent movie stars.
相反，它们摇身一变成为生动、健壮、聪明的电影明星。
I've probably found and studied a few hundred fossil footprint sites over the years.
几年间，我大概已经找到并研究了几百个化石足迹地点。
So let me take you on a little field trip to one of my favorite locations, South Korea.
我想请大家一起踏上旅途，前往我最钟爱的地区之一——韩国。
