新概念英语第四册第1课-Finding Fossil man范文.docx

新概念英语第四册第1课:Finding Fossil manFirst listen and then answer the following question.听录音，然后回答以下问题。Why are legends handed down by storytellers useful?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 generation of stories to 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 sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.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。 他们保存历史的唯一方法是将历史当作传闻讲解并描述，由讲解并描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，当地人的传闻却告知人们：其中一部分是约在2,000年前从印度尼西亚迁来的。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 'modern men' came from.但是，和我们相像的原始人生活的年头太久远了，因此，有关他们的传闻既使有如今也失传了。于是，考古学家们既缺乏历史记载，又无口头传闻来帮助他们弄清最早的“现代人”是从哪里来的。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 the men who made them have disappeared without trace.然而， 幸运的是，远古人用石头制作了工具，特殊是用燧石，因为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。New words and expressions 生词和短语fossil man (title)adj. 化石人recountv. 叙述sagan. 英雄故事legendn. 传闻，传奇migrationn. 迁移，移居anthropologistn. 人类学家archaeologistn. 考古学家ancestorn. 祖先Polynesianadj.波利尼西亚（中太平洋之一群岛）的Indonesian. 印度尼西亚flintn. 燧石rotn. 烂掉Notes on the text课文注释1 read of 读到，和read about是相同的意思。2 the first people 原始人3 when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace，这个以when引导的状语从句表示让步的意思，而“when”可以译成“虽然”，“尽管”。Lesson 1 课后练习和答案Exercises andAnswer