1 . In 1968 a grave dating from about 1100 was uncovered near Hattula, in Finland, Little remained of the occupant’s skeleton, but the inhumation included two swords and a knife. Such grave goods would normally suggest said occupant was a man. The skeleton was, ______ also decorated with brooches (胸针) and woollen clothing of types more usually worn at the time by women. This ______ guess that the burial was actually of a powerful woman, possibly a local ruler in her own right rather than just the wife of a male king.

This would be noteworthy enough. But a re-examination of the remains, just published in the European Journal of Archaeology by Ulla Moilanen of the University of Turku and Elina Salmela of the University of Helsinki, suggests the truth may be yet more ______. Ms. Moilanen and Dr Salmela suspect that the individual ______ may have had outward characteristics of both a man and a woman.

In 1968 working out the ______ of a skeleton in an ancient grave was tricky. After years of deterioration, the bones of men and women look pretty much ______. But that was before the use of DNA became possible. So Ms. Moilanen and Dr Salmela thought it worth trying again.

Most people have two sex chromosomes (染色体): XX in women and XY in men. Find DNA from a Y-chromosome in a skeleton and the chances are the body was ______. And, looking at a fragment of femur brought to her by Ms. Moilanen, who is the archaeologist in the ______, Dr. Salmela, who is the geneticist, did indeed find such DNA. But not much of it. That led her to wonder about contamination (污染), but also to consider whether the individual in the grave had had a(n) ______ X-chromosome that was swamping the signal from the Y.

Having an abnormal number of sex chromosomes is rare, but not vanishingly so. The particular ______ XXY leads to what is known as Klinefelter’s syndrome. To determine the occupant’s karyotype (染色体组型) from the tiny amount of DNA available, Dr. Salmela drew ______ with living people. The grave delivered 8,329 pieces, so she used a computer to draw samples of similar size from the genomes of living people with various karyotypes, including XXY, and also from mixtures of both sexes, to ______ contamination. She then compared these with the DNA from the grave and ______ it was 99.75% probable the individual concerned had indeed had Klinefelter’s syndrome.

While Dr Salmela was working all this out, Ms. Moilanen and her team had another look at the grave. They confirmed that it was a ______ burial. For instance, they found evidence of fine furs, probably from foxes. Clearly, this was a well-respected human being, but what led to that ______ in a world then dominated by male values is a matter of puzzle. Perhaps the person came from a family powerful enough for such things not to matter.

2 . Maryland fourth grader Molly Sampson didn’t ask for typical new year’s gifts this year. _________, the little scientist requested cold-water waders (高筒靴) so that she could hunt for fossils (化石).

Molly _________ with her father and sister to their favorite spot on Calvert Beach on the early morning. Molly’s father, Bruce Sampson, has always been into fossil _________, and his daughters share his _________.

Molly has got an impressive collection of more than 40 _________ over the years. These fossils range from modern-day shark teeth to far _________ items, like megalodon (巨齿鲨) teeth. Molly herself has found megalodon _________ before, but on this day, she found one of the largest ones ever _________. She was standing in knee-deep water when she first saw the tooth.

“I saw something _________, and it looked like a shark tooth,” she __________. “We were about knee deep in the water.”

Molly reached for the tooth, but it was so big she __________ to take it out of the water. She felt “amazed” when she finally pulled it above the __________ and saw its size.

Now Molly is more __________ than ever to pursue a career in paleontology (古生物学) someday. Her mother says she hopes other girls will see Molly’s story and become __________ to get outdoors and study science, too. “We really want other kids to get excited about being outside,” said Alicia. This amazing find is a nicer __________ for this little young scientist’s new year.