Passage 1 (舊題)

題材：歷史類

題目：History ofSahara

題型：判斷題

文章大意：

A OnOctober 13,2,000, a small team of palaeontologists led by Paul Sereno of theUniversity of Chicago clambered out of three battered Land Rovers, filled theirwater bottles, and scattered on foot across the toffee-colored sands of theTenere desert in northern Niger. The Tenere，on the southern flank of theSahara, easily ranks among the most desolate landscapes on Earth. The Tuareg，turbanednomads who for centuries have ruled this barren realm, refer to it as a “desertwithin a desert”a California-size ocean of sand and rock, where a singlemassive dune might stretch a hundred miles, and the combination of 120-degreeheat and inexorable winds can wick the water from a human body in less than aday. The harsh conditions, combined with intermittent conflict between theTuareg and the Niger government, have kept the region largely unexplored.

BMike Hettwer, a photographer accompanying the team, headed off by himselftoward a trio of small dunes. He crested the first slope and stared inamazement. The dunes were spilling over with bones. He took a few shots withhis digital camera and hurried back to the Land Rovers. ‘I found some bones:'Hettwer said, when the team had regrouped. "But they're not dinosaurs.They're human."

C Inthe spring of 2005 Sereno contacted Elena Garcea, an archaeologist at theUniversity of Cassino, in Italy, inviting her to accompany him on a return tothe site. Garcea had spent three decades working digs along the Nile in Sudanand in the mountains of the Libyan Desert, and was well acquainted with theancient peoples of the Sahara. But she had never heard of Paul Sereno. Hisclaim to have found so many skeletons in one place seemed farfetched, giventhat no other Neolithic cemetery contained more than a dozen or so. Somearchaeologists would later be skeptical; one sniped that he was just a“moonlighting paleontologist." But Garcea was too intrigued to dismiss himas an interloper. She agreed to join him.

DGarcea explained that the Kiffian were a fishing-based culture and lived duringthe earliest wet period, between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago. She held a Kiffiansherd next to a Tenerian one. “What is so amazing is that the people who made thesetwo pots lived more than a thousand years apart.

EOver the next three weeks, Sereno and Garcea-- along with five Americanexcavators, five Tuareg guides, and five soldiers from Niger's army, sent toprotect the camp from bandits-- made a detailed map of the site, which theydubbed Gobero, after the Tuareg name for the area. They exhumed eight burialsand collected scores of artifacts from both cultures. In a dry lake bedadjacent to t he dunes, they found dozens of fishhooks and harpoons carved fromanimal bone. Apparently the Kiffian fishermen weren't just going after smallfry: Scattered near the dunes were the remains of Nile perch, a beast of a fishthat can weigh nearly 300 pounds, as well as crocodile and hippo bones.

F Sereno flew home with the most important skeletons and artifactsand immediately began planning for the next field season. In the meantime, hecarefully removed one tooth from each of four skulls and sent them to a lab forradiocarbon dating. The results pegged the age of the tightly bundled burialsat roughly 9,000 years old, the heart of the Kiffian era. The smaller“sleeping” skeletons turned out to be about 6,000 years old, well within theTenerian period. At least now the scientists knew who was who.

G In the fall of 2006 they returned to Gobero, accompanied bya larger dig crew and six additional scientists. Garcea hoped to excavate some80 burials, and the team began digging. As the skeletons began to emerge fromthe dunes, each presented a fresh riddle, especially the Tenerian. A maleskeleton had been buried with a finger in his mouth.

H Even at the site, Arizona State University bioarchaeologistChris Stojanowski could begin to piece together some clues. Judging by thebones, the Kiffian appeared to be a peaceful, hardworking people. “The lack ofhead and forearm injuries suggests they weren't doing much fighting,” he toldme. “And these guys were strong.” He pointed to a long，narrow ridge running along a femur. “That’s the muscle attachment，” he said. “This individual had huge leg muscles, which means hewas eating a lot of protein and had a strenuous lifestyle-- both consistentwith a fishing way of life.” For contrast, he showed me the femur of a Tenerianmale. The ridge was barely perceptible. “This guy had a much less strenuouslifestyle,” he said, “which you might expect of a herder."

I Stojanowski's assessment that the Tenerian were herders fits theprevailing view among scholars of life in the Sahara 6,000 years ago, whendrier conditions favored herding over hunting. But if the Tenerian wereherders, Sereno pointed out, where were the herds? Among the hundreds of animalbones that had turned up at the site, none belonged to goats or sheep, and onlythree came from a cow species. “It’s not unusual for a herding culture not toslaughter their cattle, particularly in a cemetery，M Garcea responded, noting that even modem pastoralists, such asNiger’s Wodaabe, are loath to butcher even one animal in their herd. Perhaps,Sereno reasoned, the Tenerian at Gobero were a transitional group that had notfully adopted herding and still relied heavily on hunting and fishing.

JBack in Arizona, Stojanowski continues to analyze the Gobero bones for clues tothe Green Saharans’ health and diet. Other scientists are trying to derive DNAfrom the teeth, which could reveal the genetic origins of the Kiffian andTenerian — and possibly link them to descendants living today. Sereno andGarcea estimate a hundred burials remain to be excavated. But as the harshTenere winds continue to erode the dunes, time is running out. “Everyarchaeological site has a life cycle，” Garcea said. “It begins whenpeople begin to use the place, followed by disuse, then nature takes over, andfinally it is gone. Gobero is at the end of its life.”

2. where the residents come from

游牧還是定居

3. 發(fā)現(xiàn)人類痕跡，

A發(fā)現(xiàn)痕跡一起

4. 發(fā)現(xiàn)人類骨架

5. 兩類人K和T，K taller 靠打漁為生fishing

Smaller T , 研究者A draw a map

6. 研究者B研究牙齒，結(jié)果證明之前的結(jié)論

7. K features：骨頭大，沒(méi)有傷痕，強(qiáng)壯，和諧，大魚(yú)，沒(méi)有工具

8. T features：從工具(開(kāi)始游牧)

9. T 不是完全游牧，兩種hunting

部分答案：

What‘s a and bduring the weeks

Map

What they sendback

Teeth

What age taller

9000

參考閱讀：

C5T1P1 Johnson’s Dictionary

C9T4P3 The Development of Museum

（責(zé)任編輯：zyc）

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