1 . Scientists found what could be the oldest evidence of cooking at the edge of the ancient Lake Hula in Israel at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, according to a newly-published paper. The remains, especially fish teeth, were discovered near places where scientists also found signs of fire. Tests showed the teeth had been exposed to temperatures that were hot, but not super-hot. This suggested the fish were cooked slowly over a low heat, rather than being put right onto a fire.
With all the evidence together, scientists concluded that these ancient humans had used fire for cooking some 780,000 years ago. That is much earlier than the next oldest evidence for cooking, about 170,000 years ago, which showed Stone Age humans ate burnt roots in South Africa.
Scientists believe cooking started long before this, though physical evidence has been hard to come by —considering the importance of using fire to cook. Cooked food makes it easier for the body to digest and get more nutrients. When early humans figured out how to cook, they were able to get more energy, which they could use to fuel bigger brains. Based on how human ancestors’ bodies developed, scientists guess that cooking skills would have had to appear nearly 2 million years ago.
Those first cooked meals were a far cry from today’s dinners. And at that time, humans started eating not just for fuel, but for their community. In a 2010 paper, scientists described the earliest evidence of a feast(盛宴), which was a specially prepared meal that brought people together for an event in a cave. This “first feast” came at an important turning point in human history, right as hunter-gatherers were starting to settle into more permanent living situations. Gathering for special meals may have been a way to build community and reduce tensions now that people lived closer to each other. Scientists believe ancient feasts served a lot of the same social uses that modern gatherings serve: People exchange information, make connections, or try to improve their position.
1. Which is probably the earliest evidence of cooking?| A．The tools of cooking. | B．The signs of fire. |
| C．The leftover fish. | D．The burnt roots. |
| A．Food is key to keeping brains’ functioning. | B．Using fire to cook is a universal practice. |
| C．Our understanding of ancestors is limited. | D．Cooking is the driving force for human evolution. |
| A．They mark important events. | B．They have multiple functions. |
| C．They differ from modern gatherings. | D．They display excellent cooking skills. |
| A．To inform readers of a new discovery. |
| B．To explain why early humans started to cook. |
| C．To present how cooking makes us together. |
| D．To stress the importance of fire to human life. |
Archaeologists have excavated (挖掘) the ruins of a house
The house
“This is the first time that large house ruins
Archaeologists also unearthed a large number of
In 1921, the first excavation on the Yangshao village site,
Originating from the Yellow River, the Yangshao Culture is considered as
3 . A new study provides the earliest known evidence of amputation — the medical term for cutting off a part of a person’s body. Around 31,000 years ago, a young adult had his left foot and part of his left leg removed in what is modern-day Indonesia, the study suggests.
Scientists say the ancient surgery was performed when the person was a child — and that the individual went on to live for years. It suggests that humans were carrying out medical operations much earlier than scientists had thought.
Tim Maloney, the study’s lead researcher, said that researchers were exploring a cave in Borneo, a rainforest area known for ancient rock art, when they came across the person’s burial.
Although much of the skeleton(骨骼)remained, it was missing its left foot and the lower part of its left leg, Maloney explained. After examining the remains, the researchers concluded the foot bones were not missing from the burial or lost in an accident. Instead, the bones had been carefully removed. The remaining leg bone showed a clean cut that healed over, Maloney said. There were no signs of infection, which would be expected if the child had gotten its leg bitten off by a creature like a crocodile. And there were also no signs of a crushing fracture(粉碎性骨折),which would have been expected if the leg had been cut off in an accident.
The child appears to have lived for around six to nine more years after losing the limb, eventually dying from unknown causes as a young adult, researchers said.
The evidence suggests that the ancient people knew enough about medicine to perform the surgery without fatal blood loss or infection. Researchers do not know what kind of tool was used to perform the surgery, or how infection was prevented. But they believe that a sharp stone tool may have made the cut, and some of the plant life in the area could have been used for medical treatment.
“The discovery of this early surgery rewrites the history of human medical knowledge and developments,”Maloney said at a press conference.
1. What can we know about the ancient surgery?| A．It was discovered by accident. |
| B．It was later than scientists had thought. |
| C．Researchers have completely understood it. |
| D．The young adult died soon after receiving surgery. |
| A．The child’s miserable experience. |
| B．The reason for the child’s injury. |
| C．The evidence of amputation. |
| D．The significance of the discovery. |
| A．Living environment. |
| B．Family and relatives. |
| C．One of the unknown causes. |
| D．Left foot and part of his left leg. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Positive. |
| C．Puzzled. | D．Critical. |
4 . Some late Stone Age Europeans may have carried make-up inside mini bottles worm around their necks or waists more than 6,000 years ago.
Researchers have found traces of ingredients known to be used in cosmetic formulations (配力) by later civilizations inside small bottles unearthed in Slovenia, dating to between 4350 and 4100 B.C, more than 200 years earlier than previously thought. In 2014, Bine Kramberger at the Institute for the PCHS found a mini ceramic bottle al an ancient site once occupied by people of the Lasinja culture in around 4350 B. C. More than 100 similar bottles have also been found.
Their purpose was unknown, but it is thought that some might have been children’s toys. Curiously, most of them have holes in their tiny handles or edges that archaeologists think people threaded string through, enabling them to be worn around the neck or waist. But Kramberger’s find was different because it contained a solid white substance. “It was clear that it had valuable information because in such old archaeological sites, we rarely find containers that still keep remains of their former content,“ he says.
Long and thin stone tools were found near the bottle, which could have been used to extract the substance within. Now, Kramberger and his colleagues have analysed the substance in the bottle and examined 13 others from the same period.
The mystery material contained a white lead mineral called cerussite, while different lead minerals were identified in two other bottles. The three lead-containing bottles also had contents coming from beeswax (蜂蜡) inside.
The bottles’ contents could have been used for painting. says Kramberger. But he says it is more likely that they were cosmetics, because they contained common ingredients for such products known from later cultures. Cerussite powder was very popular among the ancient Greeks and Romans for skin whitening and remedies, despite is known toxicity (毒性).
Gaydarska says the new study supports what archaeologists have long thought—“that the abilities and cultures of Neolithic people were far more comprehensive and complicated than they are often given credit for”.
1. Why are the small bottles unearthed in Slovenia special?| A．The bottles might have been worn around the necks or waists. |
| B．The bottles contained some ingredients related to the make-up. |
| C．The time of the bottles is much earlier than previously thought. |
| D．Researchers were astonished at the number of the similar bottles. |
| A．String. | B．White paint. | C．Stone tools. | D．Cerussite. |
| A．The technology of extracting substances was already advanced in ancient times. |
| B．Cerussite powder was a perfect solution to skin problems for ancient Europeans. |
| C．It’s easy for archaeologists to find the containers with remains of former content. |
| D．The cultures of Neolithic people were commonly believed to be easy and simple. |
| A．People in ancient times had an eye for beauty. |
| B．Europeans may have worn make-up in the Stone Age. |
| C．Contents of the bottles found in Slovenia were analyzed. |
| D．There are various reasons for ancient Europeans’ wearing make-up. |
5 . Scientists have solved a puzzle about modern humans, after research showed that a famous skull of a human ancestor found in South Africa is a million years older than experts thought. This discovery has changed what we know of human history.
The skull, which scientists have named “Mrs Ples”, is from an ape-like human relative from a species called Australopithecus africanus (南方古猿). It was found near Johannesburg in 1947 and, based on evidence from its surroundings, was thought to be between 2. 1 and 2. 6 million years old. This puzzled scientists, because although Mrs Ples looks like a possible early ancestor of early humans, the first true humans had already evolved by the time she apparently lived. For this reason, scientists had decided that Australopithecus afarensis, a similar species from East Africa that lived about 3.5 million years ago, was our most likely ancestor instead.
To get a more accurate age for Mrs Ples, a team led by Professor Darryl Granger of Purdue University in Indiana, US, used a new method to date the sandy rocks where the skull lay. They measured the amount of certain chemicals in rocks, which form at a steady rate when they are exposed to cosmic rays (宇宙射线) on Earth’s surface. Once rocks are buried, these chemicals stop forming and slowly disappear;the surviving amount reveals how much time has passed since the rock (or bones) were on the surface.
The new study shows that Mrs Ples and other australopithecine bones nearby are between 3.4 and 3.7 million years old. This means they lived at the same time as their East African relatives, so that either group could have given rise to modern humans. However, team member Dr Laurent Bruxelles pointed out that over millions of years, at only 2,500 miles away, these groups had plenty of time to travel and to breed with each other. In other words, the groups could quite easily have met, had children together and both been part of the history of modern humans.
1. What can we learn about Mrs Ples from the first two paragraphs?| A．It is a skull found in East Africa. |
| B．It is the most possible ancestor of humans. |
| C．It is a million years older than scientists expected. |
| D．It is proved to live between 2.1 and 2.6 million years ago. |
| A．By studying the effect of cosmic rays. |
| B．By calculating the forming rate of chemicals. |
| C．By locating the sandy rocks where the skull lay. |
| D．By measuring the surviving amount of chemicals. |
| A．Modern humans came into being in East Africa. |
| B．Mrs Ples travelled and had children with East African relatives. |
| C．The history of modern humans might begin 3.5 million years ago. |
| D．Ape-like species from Africa could have interacted with each other. |
| A．Historical Puzzle Unsolved | B．Ancestor Mystery Solved |
| C．Mrs Ples: The Earliest Human Being | D．Mrs Ples: A Famous Skull |
7 . An individual from an unknown hominid (原始人类) species walked across a field of wet, volcanic ash in what is now East Africa around 3.66 million years ago, leaving behind a handful of footprints.
Those five ancient footprints, largely ignored since they were partly unearthed at Tanzania’s Laetoli site in 1976, show features of upright walking by a hominid, a new study finds. Researchers had previously considered them hard to classify, possibly produced by a young bear that took a few steps while standing. But the latest analysis refutes that suggestion.
McNutt, DeSilva, who started the new investigation as a Dartmouth College graduate student, and their colleagues fully dug out and cleaned the five Laetoli footprints in June 2019. Then they measured, photographed and 3-D scanned the ancient tracks. McNutt’s group focused on two footprints that were particularly well-preserved. Foot shapes, sizes, and walking characteristics of the Laetoli individual differed in various ways from those of other hominid individuals at the same site. The prints also didn’t match those from modern black bears and modern chimps (黑猩猩) walking upright.
The Laetoli individual possessed a wider, more chimplike foot than humans, the researchers say. Its big toe stuck out slightly from the second toe (脚趾), but not to the degree observed in chimps. On one step, the Laetoli individual’s left leg crossed in front of the right leg, leaving a left footprint directly in front of the previous track. People may cross-step in this way when trying to regain balance. And bears and chimps assume a relatively wide standing due to knee and other bone arrangements that prevent them from walking like the Laetoli individual and probably from cross-stepping, the scientists say.
Given that only two of the ancient footprints are complete enough to analyze thoroughly, the possibility that a chimp other than a hominid made the Laetoli footprints can’t be ruled out, says William Harcourt-Smith, a scientist at Lehman College. But evidence of cross-stepping is enough to prove that it was a hominid track maker, he says.
1. What does the underlined word “refutes” in Paragraph 2 mean?| A．Objects to. | B．Supports. | C．Puts forward. | D．Criticizes. |
| A．They are less chimplike. | B．They have toes sticking out. |
| C．They show a wider standing. | D．They get features of cross-stepping. |
| A．Challenging. | B．Convincing. |
| C．Confusing. | D．Conflicting. |
| A．To share a new discovery. | B．To describe a major event. |
| C．To settle a huge disagreement. | D．To introduce an unknown species. |
Music is in the corners of everyday life. It is said to be beneficial
There are many ways to make music. For example, if you blow into bamboos or shells,
Now music can be found in every known culture, and even the most distant groups have a certain form of music.
9 . Discoveries at the famous Sanxingdui ruins in Southwest China show that the region’s ancient Shu Kingdom Civilization shared similarities with the Maya.
The Sanxingdui ruins belonged to the Shu Kingdom that existed at least 4,800 years ago and lasted more than 2,000 years, while the Mayan civilization built its city-states around 200 AD.
The bronze-made remains of tress unearthed at the ruins of the Shu Kingdom resemble the sacred ceiba tree, which symbolized the union of heaven, earth and the underworld in the Mayan civilization. “They are very important similarities,” says Santos, a Mexican archaeologist (考古学家) stressing that “the representations of tress in both cultures provide a symbolism that is very similar”.
The findings at the Sanxingdui ruins, considered one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century, also show a new aspect of Bronze Age culture, indicating the ancient civilization already had technologies that were thought to have been developed much later.
While the lime span between the Shu kingdom and the Mayan culture is great, the findings highlight the closeness between the two civilizations. They developed in areas with comparable climates and reflected their worldview through related symbols. “In the end, man is still man, independent of time and space. What we have is that, at this latitude (纬度), both the Shu people and the Mayans looked at the same sky and had the same stars on the horizon,” the expert says.
One notable feature of the recent discoveries at Sanxingdui was the cross-subject work and technology applied by teams of Chinese archaeologists, which allowed the unearthing of artifacts as fragile as silk remains, which other types of less careful digging methods would not have been able to register.
Cooperation between Chinese and Mexican archaeologists could benefit projects in the Mayan world, where the rainy climate and humidity are problematic for the conservation of ruins.
“Every time our cultural knowledge increases, regardless of whether we speak one language or another, what it shows us is that we continue to be sister cultures and, therefore, the exchange of such knowledge is fundamental,” says Santos.
1. What is a similarity between the Shu Kingdom and Maya civilization?| A．Their starting time. |
| B．Their historical origins. |
| C．Their cultural symbols. |
| D．Their ceremony traditions. |
| A．silk was a common clothing material then |
| B．some technologies were developed much earlier |
| C．the Bronze Age started earlier than previously assumed |
| D．the Shu Kingdom and the Mayan world had close contact |
| A．Damp weather. | B．Positioning of ruins. |
| C．High latitude. | D．Language barriers. |
| A．The future of the China-Mexico cooperation. |
| B．The benefits of speaking a different language. |
| C．The importance of the exchange of cultural knowledge. |
| D．The increasing sisterhood in culture between China and Mexico. |
Come and see the Terracotta Army: more than 8,000 statues were made in the third century BCE
