1 . It was in the archives(档案室) of the Archbishop of York that Matthew Collins had a sudden insight: He was surrounded by millions of animal skins.
Another person might say they were surrounded by books and manuscripts written on parchment, which is made from skins, usually of cows and sheep. Collins, however, had been trying to make sense of animal—bone fragments from archaeological digs, and he began to think about the advantages of studying animal skins, already cut into rectangles and arranged neatly on a shelf. Archaeologists consider themselves lucky to get a few dozen samples, and here were millions of skins just sitting there.
In recent years, archaeologists and historians have awakened to the potential of ancient DNA extracted from human bones and teeth. DNA evidence has enriched—and complicated—stories of prehistoric human migrations. It has provided clues to epidemics such as the black death. It has identified the remains of King Richard III, found under a parking lot. But Collins isn't just interested in human remains. He’s interested in the things these humans made; the animals they bred, slaughtered, and ate; and the economies they created.
That’s why he was studying DNA from the bones of livestock—and why his lab is now at the forefront of studying DNA from objects such as parchment and beeswax. These objects can fill in gaps in the written record, revealing new aspects of historical production and trade. How much beeswax came from North Africa, for example?
Collins splits his time between Cambridge and the University of Copenhagen, and it’s hard to nail down exactly what kind of -ologist he is. He has a knack for gathering experts as diverse as parchment specialists, veterinarians, geneticists, archivists, economic historians, and protein scientists (his own background). “All I do is connect people together,” he said. “I’m just the ignorant one in the middle.”
However, it didn’t take long his group to hit their first culture conflict. In science and archaeology, destructive sampling is at least tolerated, if not encouraged. But book conservators were not going to let people in white coats come in and cut up their books. Instead of giving up or fighting through it, Sarah Fiddyment, a postdoctoral research fellow working with Collins, shadowed conservationists for several weeks. She saw that they used white Staedtler erasers to clean the manuscripts, and wondered whether that rubbed off enough DNA to do the trick. It did: the team found a way to extract DNA and proteins from eraser pieces, a compromise that satisfied everyone. The team has since sampled 5,000 animals from parchment his way.
Collins is not the first person to think of getting DNA from parchment, but he’s been the first to do it at scale. Studying the DNA in artifacts is still a relatively new field, with many prospects that remain unexplored. But in our own modern world, we’ve already started to change the biological record, and future archaeologists will not find the same treasure of hidden information in our petroleum - laden material culture. Collins pointed out what we no longer rely as much on natural materials to create the objects we need. What might have once been leather or wood or wool is now all plastic.
1. How is Collin’s study different from the study of other archaeologists?| A．He studies human skins and bones. |
| B．He is the first person to study animal skins. |
| C．He studies objects related to humans and their lives. |
| D．His study can provide clues to previous epidemics. |
| A．a subject covering a wide area |
| B．an area to explore |
| C．a person with special expert knowledge |
| D．a method to carry out research |
| A．his major doesn’t help his research |
| B．he can’t connect experts of different fields |
| C．he finds it hard to identify what kind of -ologist he is |
| D．his study covers a wide range of subjects beyond his knowledge |
| A．Destructive sampling is not allowed in the field of science and archeology. |
| B．Collin made a compromise by only studying copies of books made of animal skins. |
| C．Book protectors were opposed to Collin’s study because his group tracked them for several weeks. |
| D．It is difficult for future archeologist to study what society is like today due to plastic objects. |
| A．A new discovery in archaeology |
| B．A lab discovering DNA in old books |
| C．Archaeology on animals seeing a breakthrough |
| D．Collin's contributions to the identification of old books |
2 . 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 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 gilling 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．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. |
| A．Great Civilization of South Africa | B．The Evolution of Foods in History |
| C．Starches--the Important Food of Today | D．Big Findings--the Starches in Ancient Times |
Jingdezhen porcelain(瓷器)is Chinese porcelain produced in or near Jingdezhen in southern China. Jingdezhen has produced porcelain
Although being a remote town in a hilly area, Jingdezhen is near the quality porcelain stone and forests which can provide plenty of wood for the kilns. It also has
Jingdezhen has produced a great variety of
4 . Photographic self-portraits have existed for as long as cameras have been in human hands. But what about selfies in space? On Twitter last year, NASA astronaut Edwin Aldrin, who famously became the second man to walk on the moon in July 1969, laid claim to a spaceflight first: taking the first selfie in space during the Gemini XII mission in 1966.
“For me, it needs to be digital to be selfie,” argues Jennifer Levasseur, a director at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. According to Levasseur, the concept of a selfie is directly linked to internet culture. “The thing that makes a selfie is sharing it,” she says.
Still, astronauts have been carrying cameras aboard space vehicles since the 1960s. In 1966, Aldrin used a Hasselblad camera designed specifically for space. Hasselblad also painted the first camera in space a matte(磨砂) black to reduce reflections in the orbiter window. But cameras used in space need to survive extreme conditions, like temperature swings from -149° to 248°F, so Hasselblad painted later model silver.
Astronauts visiting the moon then had to take out the film and leave their camera bodies behind when they returned to Earth, because early space missions were limited by a weight limit on the returned trip. Then a big change in space camera technology came after the space shuttle Columbia broke apart on its return to Earth in 2003, Levasseur notes. “Fear that they’d never be able to bring film back from space and lose all that hard work accelerated the push for digital,” she says.
Today, astronauts also have access to internet and social platforms in space and can post true space selfies made using digital cameras. Similarly, space robots are participating in selfie culture, capturing remote pictures of themselves in space or on other planets and sending them back to Earth.
1. Why do selfies in space need to be digital according to Jennifer Levasseur?| A．Astronauts are fond of studying technology. |
| B．Astronauts are eager to be famous on the Internet. |
| C．Astronauts desire to communicate on social platforms. |
| D．Astronauts want to overcome the fear in space. |
| A．It is painted silver. |
| B．Its matte black gathers light. |
| C．Its design is special. |
| D．It can reduce reflection itself. |
| A．The heavy space tasks. |
| B．A returned space shuttle. |
| C．A spaceflight crash. |
| D．The improved film. |
| A．The Origin of Selfies in Space |
| B．The Brief History of Selfies in Space |
| C．The Significance of Selfies in Space |
| D．The Popularity of Selfies in Space |
5 . Freedom and Responsibility
Freedom’s challenge in the Digital Age is a serious topic. We are facing today a strange new world and we are all wondering what we are going to do with it.
Some 2,500 years ago Greece discovered freedom. Before that there was no freedom. There were great civilizations, splendid empires, but no freedom anywhere. Egypt and Babylon were both tyrannies, one very powerful man ruling over helpless masses.
In Greece, in Athens, a little city in a little country, there were no helpless masses. And Athenians willingly obeyed the written laws which they themselves passed, and the unwritten, which must be obeyed if free men live together. They must show each other kindness and pity and the many qualities without which life would be very painful unless one chose to live alone in the desert. The Athenians never thought that a man was free if he could do what he wanted. A man was free if he was self-controlled. To make yourself obey what you approved was freedom. They were saved from looking at their lives as their own private affair. Each one felt responsible for the welfare of Athens, not because it was forced on him from the outside, but because the city was his pride and his safety. The essential belief of the first free government in the world was liberty for all men who could control themselves and would take responsibility for the state.
But discovering freedom is not like discovering computers. It cannot be discovered once for all. If people do not prize it, and work for it, it will go. Constant watch is its price. Athens changed. It was a change that took place without being noticed though it was of the extreme importance, a spiritual change which affected the whole state. It had been the Athenian’s pride and joy to give to their city. That they could get material benefits from her never entered their minds. There had to be a complete change of attitude before they could look at the city as an employer who paid her citizens for doing her work. Now instead of men giving to the state, the state was to give to them. What the people wanted was a government which would provide a comfortable life for them; and with this as the primary object, ideas of freedom and self-reliance and responsibility were neglected to the point of disappearing. Athens was more and more looked on as a cooperative business possessed of great wealth in which all citizens had a right to share.
Athens reached the point when the freedom she really wanted was freedom from responsibility. There could be only one result. If men insisted on being free from the burden of self-dependence and responsibility for the common good, they would cease to be free. Responsibility is the price every man must pay for freedom. It is to be had on no other terms. Athens, the Athens of Ancient Greece, refused responsibility; she reached the end of freedom and was never to have it again.
But, “the excellent becomes the permanent,” Aristotle said. Athens lost freedom forever, but freedom was not lost forever for the world. A great American, James Madison, referred to: “The capacity (能力) of mankind for self-government.” No doubt he had not an idea that he was speaking Greek. Athens was not in the farthest background of his mind, but once man has a great and good idea, it is never completely lost. The Digital Age cannot destroy it. Somehow in this or that man’s thought such an idea lives though unconsidered by the world of action. One can never be sure that it is not on the point of breaking out into action only sure that it will do so sometime.
1. People believing in freedom are those who ________.| A．regard their life as their own business |
| B．seek gains as their primary object |
| C．behave within the laws and value systems |
| D．treat others with kindness and pity |
| A．The Athenians refused to take their responsibility. |
| B．The Athenians no longer took pride in the city. |
| C．The Athenians benefited spiritually from the government. |
| D．The Athenians looked on the government as a business. |
| A．Athens would continue to be free. |
| B．Athens would cease to have freedom. |
| C．Freedom would come from responsibility. |
| D．Freedom would stop Athens from self-dependence. |
| A．Freedom can be more popular in the digital age. |
| B．Freedom may come to an end in the digital age. |
| C．Freedom should have priority over responsibility. |
| D．Freedom needs to be guaranteed by responsibility. |
Vast deserts, magic carpets, and the legend of Aladdin's lamp. For most Chinese people, Saudi Arabia is a faraway land
However, connections between the two countries
These exchanges,
Fast forward a millennium, the relationship between a modern Saudi Arabia and a progressive China
In fact,
A trail of hot springs dot the northern Kapong District. For tree worshipers, it's a site best described as awesome. Visitors can enjoy the ancient hot springs,
Visit Phang Nga for a few days and you will immediately realise that once
If you've heard about the trading routes of the Thai south and the Malay peninsula, you will notice a remnant of this direct link between Phuket (普吉) and Phang Nga (攀牙).
However, the town centre of Phang Nga is not Takua Pa, though. The story has it
The Greek myths are almost a myth themselves.
The great dramatists Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides drew on the myths, 
and even comic strip authors —
Greek myths came from oral stories. In the beginning, people told these tales to
The names and the stories
We feel pain in our hearts
The everyday life of western culture
In English, we say someone who makes money easily has “the Midas touch”. But often, character from Greek mythology, who turns
9 . Lost cities that have been found
The White City
In 2015, a team of explorers to Honduras in search of"the Lost City of the Monke God"led to the discovery of the White City. They found the ruins in the Mosquitia region of the Central American country which is known for poisonous snakes, vicious jaguars and deadly insects. It is believed that local people hid here when the Spanish conquerors(征服者) occupied their homeland in the16th century.
Canopus and Heracleion
Modern researchers were teased by the ancient writings about the Egyptian cities Canopus and Heracleion- where Queen Cleopatra often visited. But the cities weren’t found until 1992, when a search in Alexandria waters found that the two cities had been flooded for centuries. Artifacts(史前器物) showed that the cities once highly developed as a trade network, which helped researchers piece together more about the last queen of Egypt.
Machu Picchu
A Yale professor discovered "the Lost City in the Clouds"in 1911. A combination of palaces, plazas, temples and homes, Machu Picchu displays the Inca Empire at the height of its rule. The city, which was abandoned in the 16th century for unknown reasons,was hidden by the local people from the Spanish conquerors for centuries keeping it so well preserved.
Troy
The ancient city of Troy in homer's The Iliad was considered a fictional setting for his characters to run wild. But in 1871, explorations in northwestern Turkey exposed nine ancient cities layered (层叠) on top of each other, the earliest dating back to about 5,000 years before. It was later determined that the sixth or seventh layer contained the lost city of Troy and that it was actually destroyed by an earthquake, not a wooden horse.
1. Why did people hide in the White City in the 16th century?| A．To survive the war |
| B．To search for a lost city. |
| C．To protect their country. |
| D．To avoid dangerous animals |
| A．The White City |
| B．Canopus and Heracleion |
| C．Machu Picchu |
| D．Troy |
| A．It was built by Homer. |
| B．It consisted of nine cities |
| C．It had a history of 5,000 years |
| D．It was ruined by a natural disaster. |
10 . DINERS
TONY SOPRANO’S LAST MEAL
Between 1912 and the 1990s, New Jersey State was home to more than 20 diner manufacturers who made probably 95 percent of the diners in the U.S, says Katie Zavoski, who is helping hold a diner exhibit. What makes a diner a diner? (And not, say, a coffee shop?) Traditionally, a diner is built in a factory and then delivered to its own town or city rather than constructed on-site. Zavoski credits New Jersey’s location as the key to its mastery of the form. “It was just the perfect place to manufacture the diners,” she says. “We would ship them wherever we needed to by sea.”
VISIT “Icons of American Culture: History of New Jersey Diners,” running through June 2017 at The Cornelius House/Middlesex County Museum in Piscataway, New Jersey
GOOD FOOD, GOOD TUNES
Suzanne Vega's 1987 song “Tom's Diner” is probably best known for its frequently sampled “doo doo doo doo” melody rather than its diner-related lyrics. Technically, it’s not even really about a diner — the setting is New York City’s Tom's Restaurant, which Vega frequented when she was studying at Bamard. Vega used the word “diner” instead because it “sings better that way,” she told The New York Times. November 18 has since been called Tom’s Diner Day, because on that day in 1981, the New York Post's front page was a story about the death of actor William Holden. In her song Vega sings: “I Open /Up the paper/There’s a story /Of an actor /Who had died/While he was drinking.”
LISTEN “Tom’s Diner” by Suzanne Vega
MEET THE DINER ANTHROPOLOGIST
Richard J.S. Gutman has been called the “Jane Goodall of diners” (he even consulted on Barry Levinson’s 1982 film, Diner).His book, American Diner: Then Now, traces the evolution of the “night lunch wagon,” set up by Walter Scott in 1872, to the early 1920s, when the diner got its name (adapted from “dining car”), and on through the 1980s.Gutman has his own diner facilities (floor plans, classic white mugs, a cashier booth); 250 of these items are part of an exhibit in Rhode Island.
READ American Diner: Then & Now (John Hopkins University Press)
VISIT “Diners: Still Cooking in the 21st Century,” currently running at the Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island
1. In what way is a diner different from a coffee shop?| A．Its location. | B．Its management. |
| C．From what it is built. | D．Where it is constructed. |
| A．It warns people not to drink. | B．It was inspired by Tom’s Diner Day. |
| C．Its melody is preferred to its lyrics. | D．Its original title was Tom’s Restaurant. |
