《新概念英语四-发现化石人.docx》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《新概念英语四-发现化石人.docx（3页珍藏版）》请在金锄头文库上搜索。
1、 新概念英语四 发现化石人We can read of things that happened 5，000 years ago in the Near East， where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the word where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas legends handed down from one ge
2、neration of another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago， but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The saga
3、s of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2，000 years ago.But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas， if they had any， are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first ”mod
4、ern men” came from.Fortunately， however， ancient men made tools of stone， especially flint， because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins， but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay， and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of th
5、e men who made them have disappeared without trace.ROBIN PLACE Finding fossil manNew words and expressions 生词和短语fossil man （title） adj. 化石人recount v. 表达saga n. 英雄故事legend n. 传奇，传奇migration n. 迁移，移居anthropologist n. 人类学家archaeologist n. 考古学家ancestor n. 祖先Polynesianadj.波利尼西亚（中太平洋之一群岛）的Indonesia n. 印度尼
6、西亚flint n. 燧石rot n. 烂掉参考译文我们从书籍中可读到5，000 年前近东发生的事情，那里的人最早学会了写字。但直到现在，世界上有些地方，人们还不会书写。他们保存历史的方法是将历史当作传奇叙述，由叙述人一代接一代地将史实描述为传奇故事口传下来。人类学家过去不清晰如今生活在太平洋诸岛上的波利尼西亚人的祖先来自何方，当地人的传奇却告知人们：其中一局部是约在2，000年前从印度尼西亚迁来的。但是，和我们相像的原始人生活的年月太长远了，因此，有关他们的传奇既使有如今也失传了。于是，考古学家们既缺乏历史记载，又无口头传奇来帮忙他们弄清最早的“现代人“是从哪里来的。然而， 幸运的是，远古人用石头制作了工具，特殊是用燧石，由于燧石较之其他石头更简单成形。他们也可能用过木头和兽皮，但这类东西早已腐烂殆尽。石头是不会腐烂的。因此，尽管制造这些工具的人的骨头早已荡然无存，但远古时代的石头工具却保存了下来。
