Nowadays many people like making bread at home. Thousands of years before the coming of agriculture, people were already making bread. That’s the surprising     1     (conclude) of a new study based on a curious find in northeastern Jordan.

At its most basic, bread is the combination of     2     (process) grains and water that have been baked, fried or steamed. The process leaves behind chemical and structural qualities that researchers can use to identify the principal food. And that’s just     3     archaeologists found when they investigated a 14,000-year-old site known as Shubayqa 1 in Jordan’s Black Desert. The inhabitants, who     4     (be) hunter-gatherers, left their home     5     a hurry, with the contents of their most recent meal still smoldering (焖) in two sunken fireplaces.

With     6     help of a scanning electron microscope, which uses electrons to return incredibly complicated zoomed-in images, the researchers     7     (identify) 24 pieces of char (炭) that were decidedly breadlike. Though the bread’s exact grain remains unknown,     8     (it) structure resembles grain species.

The find is the     9     (old) example of bread yet discovered and predates (先于) the arrival of agriculture in the region by some 4,000 years. The discovery, which could help researchers better understand how ancient cultures met their nutritional needs, suggests knowing how     10     (grow) grains isn’t essential to making bread from them.

One cannot help but wonder     1     the man was holding, when looking up to the famous bronze standing man, in Sanxingdui,       2     archaeological (考古) site located in Sichuan province.

    3     the numerous bronze statues there, this giant standing bronze figure,     4    (measure) 260.8 centimeters in height, is the “highest” ruler. People argue over just about all     5    (aspect) of him, from identity and dragon-patterned clothing, to delicate headpiece. Yet nothing has aroused more interest than     6    (he) gestures. With arms raised in midair and fingers of both hands circled to form a hole in the middle, the man     7    (doubt) was holding something, something that is likely to have been lost or rotted away after countless years.

But what was it?

“It’s a gold scepter (权杖),” says Hu Jialin, who is behind a well-researched     8    (exhibit) at Shanghai Museum, which takes a deeper look at the myths of Sanxingdui.

The reason is simple: just a month before the unearthing of the bronze man, a 1.42-meter-long gold scepter was found at the same site, made up of a layer of gold foil (金箔) wrapped around a wooden stick.     9     initially mistaken for a belt as the wooden part long rotted away, this gold scepter     10    (prove) to be one of the biggest of its kind found in China and beyond.

Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient     1     (bury) town in Ethiopia that was inhabited for 1, 400 years. The town was part of a powerful civilisation called Aksum that dominated East Africa for centuries.

“This is one of the most important ancient     2     (civilisation), but people in the Western world don't know it,” says Michael Harrower, who has thrown himself     3    the study of the surrounding area. After discussions with the local people, the archaeologists set out     4     (dig) near a village, where they found piles of stone wall spread over fourteen hectares of land, which turned out to be a hill created by     5     (ruin).

According to Michael, future research at the site has the potential to clarify a range of topics, including the rise of one of Africa's first complex societies. Currently, they plan to do a further     6     (investigate) to look     7    this complex, yet still rather mysterious, society.