7 .
Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.
| A. alternative B. capacity C. characteristic D. extinct E. exclude F. identity G. increasingly H. interacting I. measuring J. narrative K. restore |
The earliest storytellers
A stunning cave painting discovered in Indonesia may be the earliest evidence of storytelling. The artwork is at least 43,900 years old, and shows that humans were depicting scenes tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.
The painting is a 4.5-metre-wide hunting scene, discovered by Maxime Aubert of Griffith University, Australia and his colleagues. It depicts at least eight small human-like figures hunting two pigs and four dwarf buffaloes with spears or ropes. “It’s a(n) 1 scene,” says Aubert. He and his colleagues calculated the painting’s age by 2 the levels of uranium (铀) in stone layers that cover the images. At 43,900 years old, it could be the oldest figurative cave painting that has yet been found although we don't know what type of human made them. Until this discovery, the oldest known artworks depicting visual “stories”, with humans and animals 3 in a recognizable scene, dated from around 20,000 years ago and was found in Europe, such as the famous Lascaux paintings in France. “Now we show that at least 44,000 years ago, in South-East Asia, humans were telling stories and they were depicting them in rock art,” says Aubert.
“It’s really an exciting discovery,” says Genevieve von Petzinger at the University of Victoria, Canada, “It shows a (n) 4 timeline of how art developed. When you get a scene like this one, it opens the door a little further." The human-like figures appear to have animal 5 .” They are half human, half animal. The oldest previously known example was the Lion Man statue. Carved around 40,000 years ago, it combines a lion's head and human body. Until now, it was the earliest evidence of the ability of humans to depict things that don’t exist in nature-a(n) 6 linked to imagination and spirituality. “Now it seems the same thing was happening in South-East Asia, but even earlier,” says Aubert.
The cave painting gives us a glimpse into the minds of the people who created the Indonesian art, but we don’t yet know whether they were modern humans or one of our 7 cousins. The team hasn't found human remains in the Sulawesi cave, says Aubert, so it isn't possible to be sure of the 8 of the artists.
One possible group is the Denisovans, who may also have lived in Asia at this time. Earlier this year, while studying a site in China thought to have been home to Denisovans, a team of researchers revealed artistic engravings on a piece of bone.
“We can’t completely 9 Denisovans or another species,” says Aubert of the Indonesian cave art, “There were probably at least two other species that lived in this region at the same time as modern humans.”
The discovery comes as archaeologists 10 turn their attentions towards Asia. “People should stay tuned to Asia,” says von Petzinger, “In the next decade there will be many exciting announcements coming from this part of the world.”
