Lesson 1

Finding fossil man

We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write.
我们可以读到5000年前发生在近东的事情，在那里人们首次学会了书写。
But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write.
但是世界上仍有一些地方，人们甚至现在还不会写字。
The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas—legends handed down from one generation of storytellers to another.
他们保存历史的唯一方式就是将其讲述为传奇——即从一代讲故事的人传给下一代的传说。
These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did.
这些传说是很有用的，因为它们能够告诉我们一些关于很久以前生活的人们的迁徙情况，但没有人能够写下他们做了什么。
Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from.
人类学家想知道现在居住在太平洋岛屿的波利尼西亚民族的遥远祖先来自哪里。
The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.
这些人的传说解释说，他们中的一些人大约在2000年前来自印度尼西亚。
But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten.
但是第一批像我们这样的人生活在很久以前，以至于他们的传说（如果他们有的话）都已被遗忘。
So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first modern men came from.
所以考古学家既没有历史也没有传说来帮助他们找出第一批现代人是从哪里来的。
Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds.
幸运的是，然而，古代人类制造了石头工具，特别是燧石，因为这比其他种类更容易塑形。
They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away.
他们也可能使用过木头和兽皮，但这些已经腐烂消失了。
Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.
石头不会腐烂，因此很久以前的工具留存了下来，而制造它们的人的骨头甚至已经消失得无影无踪。