1 . In 1823, a young woman noticed a strange fossil (化石) on a beach near Lyme Regis, England. She dug out the bones and had them carried to her home.She carefully arranged the skeleton(骨架) on a table. Then she saw something extraordinary. The creature’s neck was a meter long-more than half the length of its body. It was unlike any animal living on Earth.

Even at a young age, Mary Anning had a talent for spotting unusual fossils. Her father died in 1810, leaving her family in.debt, so Mary began selling her fossils to collectors. At 12, she made her first major discovery—a crocodile-like skull(头骨) with a long skeleton. It turned out to be a sea creature that lived long ago. Named ichthyosaur, or “fish-lizard”, it was the first extinct animal known to science.

Fossil hunting brought in money, but it was a dangerous job. One day, a rock fall killed her dog and almost buried Mary. Despite the dangers, she continued to look for mew finds The long-necked fossil she unearthed in 1823 was another long-dead sea reptile(爬行动物). Known as a plesiosaur, it would inspire legends—including that of the Loch Ness Monster.

Mary was not only a skilled fossil hunter; she also carefully examined and recorded her finds. However, she wasn’t widely recognized in the scientific community. Only one of her scientific writings got published in her lifetime, in 1839. She was also not allowed to join London’s Geological Society, as membership was only available to men.

Mary Anning died in 1847, but her contributions have not been forgotten. Her finds are now displayed in museums in London and Paris. The beach near her home is a UNFSCO World Heritage Site, known as the Jurassic Coast. Her life continues to inspire visitors hoping to find their own fossil wonders. According to Britain’s Natural History Museum, Mary Anning was “the greatest fossil hunter the world has ever known”.

4 . 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.

More than 500 pieces of relics     1     (discover) at the Sanxingdui Ruins site last year. The relics include golden masks, jade and ivory artifacts and bronze wares     2     were exquisitely (精美地) built and     3     (unique) shaped, said the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Heritage Administration on Sept. 9, 2021. The new discoveries bring the total number of items unearthed at Sanxingdui     4     nearly 2,000 after the excavation of No. 3 to No. 8 sacrificial pits began in October of 2020.

Tang Fei, chief of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute, said, “The new discoveries demonstrate once again that the     5     (imagine) and creation of the ancient Chinese far surpassed what people today had expected”. Tang added that the excavation of the new pits has entered a critical stage, with more     6     (item) yet to be unearthed. He also anticipated that the items found will challenge the     7     (convention) wisdom of archaeologists.

Originally discovered in     8     late 1920s, the Sanxingdui Ruins have been considered as one of the world’s greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.     9     (locate) in the city of Guanghan, around 60 km from Chengdu, the ruins covering an area of 12 square km are believed     10     (be) the remnants (遗迹) of the Shu Kingdom, dating back some 4,500 to 3,000 years.

More than 500 pieces of relics    1    (discover) at the Sanxingdui Ruins site last year. The relics include golden masks, jade and ivory artifacts and bronze wares, said the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Heritage Administration on Sep 9, 2021.

The new discoveries bring the total number of items unearthed at Sanxingdui    2    nearly 2,000 after the digging of No. 3 to No. 8 sacrificial pits began in October of 2020.

Tang Fei, chief of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute, said, “The new discoveries demonstrate once again that the imagination and    3    (create) of the ancient Chinese went far beyond    4    people today had expected.”

Tang added that the digging of the new pits has entered a    5    (significance) stage, with more items yet to be unearthed. He also predicted that the items    6    (find) there will challenge the conventional wisdom of archaeologists.

    7    (original) discovered in the late 1920s, the Sanxingdui Ruins have been considered    8    (be) one of the world’s greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.

It is believed that the ruins covering    9    area of 12 km² are the relics of the Shu Kingdom,    10    (date) back some 4, 500 to 3, 000 years.

Recently, the remains of a gold mask are among a huge pit (坑) of 3,000-year-old items found at an archaeological(考古的) site in China’s Sichuan province.     1     (weigh) about 280 grams and estimated to have 84% gold, the gold mask is one of over 500 items unearthed from six     2     (new) discovered “sacrificial pits”.

In addition to the gold mask, archaeologists uncovered bronzes, gold foils and items     3     (make) from ivory, jade and bone. The six pits also unearthed a mysterious wooden box and a bronze vessel (器皿) which are hard     4     (explain). Since the 1920s, archaeologists     5     (discover) more than 50,000 ancient items at Sanxingdui.

The latest finds enrich and deepen archaeologists’     6     (understand) of how civilization developed in ancient China. In particular, evidence of a unique Shu culture suggests that the kingdom developed independently of neighboring societies in the Yellow River Valley,     7     was traditionally considered to be the birthplace of Chinese civilization.

Though not yet recognized     8     a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Sanxingdui is on the organization’s “possible future list”. Along with other Shu archaeological     9     (site), it is considered by the UN agency to be “    10     outstanding representative of the Bronze Age Civilization of China, East Asia and even the world”.

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 trees 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 trees 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 time 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.