1 . Recently according to a new research，humans have had a link to starches (含淀粉的食物) for up to 120,000 years — that’s more than 100,000 years longer than we’ve been able to plant them in the soil during the time of the Ice Age’s drawing to an end. The research is part of an ongoing study into the history of Middle Stone Age communities.
An international team of scientists identified evidence of prehistoric starch consumption in the Klasies River Cave, in present-day South Africa. Analyzing small, ashy, undisturbed hearths (壁炉) inside the cave, the researchers found “pieces of burned starches” ranging from around 120,000 to 65,000 years old. It made them the oldest known examples of starches eaten by humans.
The findings do not come as a complete surprise — but rather as welcome confirmation of older theories that lacked the related evidence. The lead author Cynthia Larbey said that there had previously only been genetic (基因的) biological evidence to suggest that humans had been eating starch for this long. This new evidence, however, takes us directly to the dinner table, and supports the previous assumption that humans，digestion genes gradually evolved in order to fit into an increased digestion of starch.
Co-author Sarah Wurz said, “The starch remains show that these early humans living in the Klasies River Cave could battle against their tough environment and find suitable foods and perhaps medicines. And as much as we all still desire the tubers (块茎), these cave communities were grilling starches such as potatoes on their foot-long hearths. They knew how to balance their diets as well as they could, with fats from local fish and other animals.”
As early as the 1990s, some researchers started to study the hearths in the Klasies River Cave. Scientist Hilary Deacon first suggested that these hearths contained burned plants. At the time, the proper methods of examining the remains were not yet available. We now know human beings have always been searching for their desired things.
1. When did humans begin to farm starches?| A．After the Ice Age. |
| B．After the Middle Stone Age. |
| C．About 20,000 years ago. |
| D．About 100,000 years ago. |
| A．South Africa once had rich soil to grow crops |
| B．hearths were widespread in early human history |
| C．early humans possibly drove away animals by fire |
| D．settlers there might have used fire to cook starches |
| A．Starch diet promoted food culture. |
| B．Starch diet shaped humans’ evolution. |
| C．Starches had a variety of functions. |
| D．Starches offered humans rich nutrition. |
| A．They were smart and tough. |
| B．They preferred plants to meat. |
| C．They were generally very healthy. |
| D．They got along with each other. |
Archaeologists have found more than 1,000 significant relics at the six new pits (坑) of the legendary Sanxingdui Ruins site in southwest China. The excavation of the No. 3 to No. 8 sacrificial pits,
So far, archaeologists
The Sanxingdui Ruins, which was accidentally discovered by a farmer
3 . A long lost 16th century civilization has been unearthed in rural Kansas-all thanks to a teen who helped archaeologists(考古学家)confirm the incredible discovery.
The long-lost city called Etzanoa-where up to 20,000 Indians once lived-was discovered in Arkansas City, in the south-central part of the state, when a high school boy found a cannon(炮)ball that tipped off the experts that their long-held suspicions about the existence of Etzanoa were correct.
The city, whose name means “The Great Settlement”, is believed to be the second-largest Native American city in the U.S. and was the site of a battle between Spanish explorers and Indian soldiers in 1601.
“The Spanish were amazed by the size of Etzanoa, ” according to Donald Blakeslee, a 73-year-old Wichita State University archaeologist, who announced the discovery. “They counted 2,000 houses that could hold ten people each. They said it would take two or three days to walk through it all.”
For years, he and other scientists hunted for the fabled city. They dug up pottery, knives and stone tools that would link it to records from Spanish explorers - but couldn’t confirm that it was Etzanoa. Then last year, Adam Ziegler, who attends a nearby high school, discovered a half-inch iron cannon ball — linking it to the 1601 battle. During the battle, the Spanish fired cannons at Indian soldiers, who eventually fled the city.
Kansas officials now want to turn the long-lost city into a scenic spot. “We’re looking at creating something that could be great for the region, and for 50 years and more down the road,” said Jay Warren, an Arkansas City Council member. “And we think the site could also be a hands-on field training facility for archaeologists from all over the world. ”
1. What does the underlined phrase “tipped off” in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Gave information to. | B．Let down. |
| C．Played tricks on. | D．Knocked off. |
| A．It was once home to over 20,000 Indians. |
| B．It witnessed great changes in the last few centuries. |
| C．It was a famous tourist attraction in the 16th century. |
| D．It was the largest Indian settlement in the U.S. at the time. |
| A．The Indians were at war with the Spanish. |
| B．The Spanish explorers settled down in Arkansas City. |
| C．The Indians set up a large settlement in Arkansas City. |
| D．Etzanoa was abandoned by the Spanish and became a lost city. |
| A．A museum will be set up there. |
| B．Tourism will be promoted there. |
| C．It will be returned to the native Indians. |
| D．It will be rebuilt into a large settlement. |
4 . While most people don’t think much about garbage, trash (垃圾) is beloved by archaeologist (考古学家). A favorite site for study is a midden (贝丘), an old trash or garbage heap (堆). A midden might contain damaged stone or metal items, which tell us about the weapons and tools people used. Softer materials such as wood, cloth, leather, and baskets are sometimes preserved. They may tell us what people wore, how they carried things, or the kind of toys used by children. Historic household trash heaps often contain broken pottery pieces and even traces of the food they once held.
Most people no longer keep a trash heap by the kitchen door. Instead, garbage is hauled off to landfills (垃圾填埋池). These landfills can still attract archaeologists. The Garbage Project collected information from landfills from 1987 to 1995. Student archaeologists measured tons of garbage from 15 landfills across the United States and Canada. This garbology, the study of garbage, research led to a better understanding of how people have changed what they consume during this period of time. The findings also led to a better awareness of how quickly various items rot. This helped with city planning for garbage disposal and recycling efforts.
Some found objects that may clearly be of archaeological interest, such as arrowheads and spear points. It is typically against the law to collect these on public lands, so they should be left in place. If you take a photo and note the location, you can notify the state archaeologist or the government branch that is in charge of the land, such as the National Park Service or the Bureau of Land Management.
Everyone is responsible for protecting archaeological resources, which is a concept known as “archaeological stewardship.” Sometimes this even means protecting old garbage.
1. Why is old trash important according to archaeologists?| A．It can teach us about the past. |
| B．It might help us locate metal mines. |
| C．It can contribute to modern material industry. |
| D．It might encourage us to protect our environment. |
| A．They conducted a study on modern trash. |
| B．They recycled waste from some landfills. |
| C．They offered some creative city planning ideas. |
| D．They compared ancient trash heaps with modern landfills. |
| A．Donate it to public collections. |
| B．Take it to proper authorities. |
| C．Leave it in a safe place. |
| D．Mark the place of it. |
| A．Past or Future? | B．Trash or Treasure? |
| C．Protection of Damage? | D．Problem or Resource? |
5 . 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. |
6 . A hungry badger (獾) searching for food seems to have uncovered what turned out to be hundreds of Roman coins in a Spanish cave, according to a new study.
Archaeologists (考古学家) first discovered several coins laying on the ground at the entrance to a small cave in the woodlands outside Grado in northern Spain in April 2021. The researchers suspect that the coins were unearthed by a badger from a nearby den (兽窝) after a heavy snow which made it harder for animals to find food. The hungry badger probably got into the cave looking for food but came across the coins instead.
After fully exploring the cave, researchers collected 209 coins dating to between the third and fifth centuries A.D. “To date, this is the largest amount of Roman coins found in n cave in northern Spain,” the researchers wrote in their paper. They described the discovery as an “exceptional find”.
In the late 1930s, a collection of 14 gold Roman coins, known as the Chapipi treasure, was also found in the same woodlands. The researchers believe that local people may have buried their coins to keep them safe during a period of intense political instability in the region. The most recent coin in the newly-discovered Grado collection dates to A.D. 430, which was after the Suebi—a group of Germanic people originally from modern-day Germany and the Czech Republic—pushed the Romans out of Spain in A.D. 409, according to El Pais.
The researchers suspect that the newly-discovered coins are part of a vaster treasure and will return to the cave for further exploration to look for more coins and evidence that the cave may also have been the home of displaced Roman people. “We want to know if it was a one-off hiding place, or if there was a group of humans living there,” lead researcher Alfonso Fanjul Peraza told El Pais.
1. Where did the researchers find the first few coins in 2021?| A．Near a Spanish cave. | B．On a Spanish playground. |
| C．At the entrance to a woodland. | D．In a badger’s den. |
| A．It’s dangerous. | B．It’s timely. | C．It’s meaningless. | D．It’s unusual. |
| A．The Romans. | B．The coins. | C．The woodlands. | D．The researchers. |
| A．More information may be revealed by the coins. |
| B．The ancient Roman people had a unique lifestyle. |
| C．The researchers doubt the former guess of the coins. |
| D．The researchers will return the coins to the Roman people. |
ZHENGZHOU—Pingdingshan University in Central China’s Henan province has found more than1,000 ceramic (陶瓷) balls used in a golf-like ball game in ancient China. The university make the
The relics are related to an ancient game called “Chuiwan” in Chinese,
Most of the balls arc about 5 centimeters in diameter. The relics date back to as early as the Tang Dynasty,
“This is the first time that China
The first emperor of China, Qin Shihuang, is remembered for the many things he did during his rule.
Today, the soldiers in Xi’an’s terracotta museum are light brown, but they weren’t always this color. They began as an army of red, blue, yellow, green, white, and purple.
New
9 . The Sanxingdui Ruins site is one of the greatest archaeological (考古学的) discoveries of the 20th century in the world. It is located near the Yazihe River at Guanghan City, Sichuan Province and as Sichuan is where the ancient state of Shu (蜀国) was located, it is believed that Sanxingdui was the capital of the ancient “Shu culture”.
The site was originally discovered in the 1920s by a farmer. A huge surprise came in 1986 when two sacrificial pits (祭祀坑) filled with more than 1,000 cultural relics, including gold masks, bronze sacred trees, bronze ware, jade ware and ivory, were discovered by local workers excavating (挖掘) clay for bricks.
On March 20, 2021, officials announced that they had discovered six new sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui Ruins site and have found nearly 500 important cultural relics to date. The finding quickly gained attention worldwide.
During about a year of hard work, nearly 2,000 cultural relics were unearthed in these six newly discovered sacrificial pits. In September, officials held another media briefing and announced the discovery of 1,771 cultural relics from the number three and number four pits, of which 557 relics were relatively complete and the rest are fragments.
Among the items, the gold mask is the most impressive. It was found in June. After restoration, it turned out to be the biggest complete gold mask found at the site, with fine texture and quality. Three bronze figures (雕像) with their palms pressed together and their heads twisted to the right, were also a unique find among Sanxingdui items in terms of their shape and decorative pattern.
Experts said that these new discoveries provided further material for studying the bronze casting (铸造) technology of the Shu people as well as their art, religious beliefs, social system and cultural exchanges with surrounding areas.
1. Who was the first to have discovered the Sanxingdui Ruins?| A．An official. | B．A farmer. | C．A worker. | D．An archaeologist. |
| A．Large items. | B．Broken pieces. | C．Good qualities. | D．Impressive looks. |
| A．The religious symbols. | B．The fine texture and quality. |
| C．Their size and material. | D．Their shape and decorations. |
| A．The importance of the new discoveries. | B．The further studies of Sanxingdui Ruins. |
| C．The casting technology of the Shu people. | D．The cultural exchanges with other countries. |
