有思想的鱼的阅读精读贴

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TPO 6+3
Infantile Amnesia婴幼儿健忘症
What do you remember about your life before you were three? Few people can remember anything that happened to them in their early years. Adults' memories of the next few years also tend to be scanty scanty ['skænti]adj. 缺乏的；吝啬的；仅有的；稀疏的. Most people remember only a few events-usually ones that were meaningful and distinctive distinctive [dis'tiŋktiv]adj. 有特色的，与众不同的，such as being hospitalized or a sibling’s birth.
三岁前生活中发生事情你还记得多少？很少有人能记得婴幼儿时期曾经发生在他们身上的事情。成年人对三岁之后那几年的记忆也很稀疏。大部分人只记得那些很少的特殊的事情，比如住院或者弟弟妹妹的出生。
How might this inability to recall early experiences be explained? The sheer passage of time does not account for it恐怕时间的流逝无法阐述清楚; adults have excellent recognition of pictures of people who attended high school with them 35 years earlier. Another seemingly plausibleadj. 貌似可信的 explanation-that infants do not form enduring持久的 memories at this point in development-also is incorrect. Children two and a half to three years old remember experiences that occurred in their first year, and eleven month olds remember some events a year later. Nor does the hypothesis that infantile amnesia reflects repression- or holding back- of sexually charged episodes explain the phenomenon．。那些假设婴幼儿健忘症反映了孩子们对充满性欲的插曲的压制和隐藏，同样也解释不通。While such repression may occur，people cannot remember ordinary events from the infant and toddler periods either．这种压制发生的时候，人们连孩提时代最普通的事情都是无法回忆起来的。
Three other explanations seem more promising. One involves physiological changes relevant to memory. Maturation成熟 of the frontal lobes大脑前庭 of the brain continues throughout early childhood, and this part of the brain may be critical for remembering particular episodes in ways that can be retrieved later.
一种观点认涉及记忆相关的生理变化。孩子们早期的童年时代中，脑前叶不断地成熟，它对记忆发生的特殊事件以及之后对这些事情的回想起着至关重要的作用。 Demonstrations of infants’ and toddlers' long-term memory have involved their repeating motor activities that they had seen or done earlier，such as reaching in the dark for objects, putting a bottle in a dolls mouth, or pulling apart two pieces of a toy. The brain’s level of physiological maturation may support these types of memories，but not ones requiring explicit 清楚的verbal言语的 descriptions描述.
婴幼儿长期记忆的形成，还会涉及到他们之前早期看到的或者自身经历的活动的重复，比如：到黑暗的环境里取东西，把瓶子塞到了洋娃娃的嘴里，或者将玩具撕成两半等。除了那些需要清晰语言描述的事件之外，大脑生理成熟的程度足以帮助他们记得这些特殊事件。

A second explanation involves the influence of the social world on children’s language use．Hearing and telling stories about events may help children store information in ways that will endure直到 into later childhood and adulthood．Through hearing stories with a clear beginning，middle, and ending children may learn to extract提取 the gist主旨 of events in ways that they will be able to describe many years later. Consistent with this view parents and children increasingly engage in discussions of past events when children are about three years old. However, hearing such stories is not sufficient for不足以 younger children to form enduring memories. Telling such stories to two year olds does not seem to produce long-lasting verbalizable memories.
越来越多的家长们会在孩子三岁左右的时候和他们讨论过去发生的事情，这也与该理论一致。然而，仅仅听这些故事还是不足以帮他们形成永久的记忆。给两岁的孩子讲故事，并不能使他们形成语言化的记忆。

A third likely explanation for infantile amnesia involves incompatibilities不相容，不协调，不一致 between the ways in which infants encode编码，译码 information and the ways in which older children and adults retrieve it. 第三种可能的解释认为婴幼儿健忘症与婴儿储存信息的方式和成年后进行回忆的方式不相容有关。 Whether people can remember an event depends critically on the fit between 关键在于这两种方式的匹配程度the way in which they earlier encoded the information and the way in which they later attempt to retrieve it. The better able the person is to reconstruct the perspective from which the material was encoded, the more likely that recall will be successful.两种方式越匹配，越有助于人们成功回忆之前发生的事情。
This view is supported by a variety of factors that can create mismatches不匹配 between very young children's encoding and older children's and adults' retrieval efforts.
事实上，很多因素会导致婴幼儿储存信息的方式和进成年人行回忆的方式不匹配。 The world looks very different to a person whose head is only two or three feet above the ground than to one whose head is five or six feet above it, 0lder children and adults often try to retrieve the names of things they saw, but infants would not have encoded the information verbally口头的．General knowledge of categories of events such as a birthday party or a visit to the doctor's office helps older individuals encode their experiences, but again, infants and toddlers are unlikely to encode many experiences within such knowledge structures．人们对类似生日聚会或者拜访医生诊所类似事件的分类常识有助于人们记忆他们的经历，但是，婴幼儿时期的孩子们似乎缺乏这些知识结构来帮助他们储存信息。

These three explanations of infantile amnesia are not mutually exclusive互相排斥：indeed, they support each other. Physiological immaturity may be part of why infants and toddlers do not form extremely enduring memories, even when they hear stories that promote such remembering in preschoolers. 学龄前孩子听到那些可以促进他们回忆的故事时，生理上的不成熟是导致他们无法形成长久记忆的原因之一。 Hearing the stories may lead preschoolers to encode aspects of events that allow them to form memories they can access as adults．Conversely反过来，improved encoding of what they hear may help them better understand and remember stories and thus make the stories more useful for remembering future events. Thus, all three explanations-- physiological maturation hearing and producing stories about past events，and improved encoding of key aspects of events--seem likely to be involved in overcoming Infantile amnesia听那些故事将有助于学龄前孩子在脑中储存已经发生的事情，以便形成他们可以像成年人那样自由提取的记忆。相反，将他们听到的故事进行更进一步的编码将有助于他们更好地理解和记忆，因此，那些故事将对他们记住将来发生的事情更有帮助。综上所述，生理上的成熟、听故事和讲故事以及改进对事件关键信息的编码都有助于克服婴幼儿遗忘症。

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支持一下

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TPO 14 第三篇

Pastoralism in Ancient Inner Eurasia

（田园主义）在古代欧亚内陆

Pastoralism is a lifestyle in which economic activity is based primarily on livestock家畜. Archaeological考古学的 evidence suggests that by 3000 B.C., and perhaps even earlier, there had emerged出现 on the steppes大草原 of Inner Eurasia the distinctive types of pastoralism that were to dominate the region's history for several millennia千年期. Here, the horse was already becoming the animal of prestige in many regions, though sheep, goats, and cattle could also play a vital role. It is the use of horses for transportation and warfare战争，冲突 that explains why Inner Eurasian pastoralism proved the most mobile机动，易变的 and the most militaristic军国主义 of all major forms of pastoralism. The emergence and spread of pastoralism had a profound impact on the history of Inner Eurasia, and also, indirectly, on the parts of Asia and Europe just outside this area. In particular, pastoralism favors a mobile lifestyle, and this mobility helps to explain the impact of pastoralist societies on this part of the world.
第一段不难，看完可以猜出“游牧”的主题。
The mobility移动性，歉意率 of pastoralist societies reflects their dependence on animal-based foods. While agriculturalists rely on domesticated plants, pastoralists rely on domesticated animals. As a result, pastoralists牧民, like carnivores食肉动物（食虫植物） in general, occupy a higher position on the food chain. All else being equal, this means they must exploit larger areas of land than do agriculturalists to secure the same amount of food, clothing, and other necessities. So pastoralism is a more extensive lifeway than farming is. However, the larger the terrain地形，领域 used to support a group, the harder it is to exploit that terrain while remaining in one place. So, basic ecological principles imply a strong tendency within pastoralist lifeways toward nomadism游牧 (a mobile lifestyle). As the archaeologist Roger Cribb puts it, The greater the degree of pastoralism, the stronger the tendency toward nomadism游牧. A modern Turkic nomad游牧民，流浪者 interviewed by Cribb commented: "The more animals you have, the farther you have to move.
这一段主要是农业和游牧的比较。
Nomadism has further consequences. It means that pastoralist societies occupy and can influence very large territories. This is particularly true of the horse pastoralism that emerged in the Inner Eurasian steppes, for this was the most mobile of all major forms of pastoralism. So, it is no accidents that with the appearance of pastoralist societies there appear large areas that share similar cultural, ecological, and even linguistic features. By the late fourth millennium B.C., there is already evidence of large culture zones reaching from Eastern Europe to the western borders of Mongolia. Perhaps the most striking显著的 sign of mobility is the fact that by the third millennium B.C., most pastoralists in this huge region spoke related languages ancestral祖先的，祖传的 to the modem Indo-European languages. The remarkable mobility and range of pastoral societies explain, in part, why so many linguists have argued that the Indo-European languages began their astonishing expansionist扩张主义者 career not among farmers in Anatolia (present-day Turkey), but among early pastoralists from Inner Eurasia. Such theories imply that the Indo-European languages evolved not in Neolithic 新石器时代(10,000 to 3,000 B.C.) Anatolia, but among the foraging觅食 communities of the cultures in the region of the Don and Dnieper rivers, which took up stock breeding and began to exploit the neighboring steppes.
这一段讲游牧族占有并影响了很大的地理范围，还传播了他们的语言。大概是这样，混乱~
Nomadism also subjects使服从 pastoralist communities to strict rules of portability. If you are constantly on the move, you cannot afford to accumulate large material surpluses. Such rules limit variations in accumulated material goods between pastoralist households (though they may also encourage a taste for portable goods of high value such as silks or jewelry). So, by and large, nomadism implies a high degree of self-sufficiency and inhibits the appearance of an extensive division of labor. Inequalities of wealth and rank certainly exist, and have probably existed in most pastoralist societies, but except in periods of military conquest, they are normally too slight to generate the stable, hereditary hierarchies that are usually implied by the use of the term class.lnequalities of gender have also existed in pastoralist societies, but they seem to have been softened by the absence of steep hierarchies of wealth in most communities, and also by the requirement that women acquire most of the skills of men, including, often, their military skills.
这一段讲游牧族社会的阶级和男女不平等现象。

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这个字怎么就大不了呢

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TPO  7 +1

The Geologic History of the Mediterranean
地中海的地质历史
In 1970 geologists Kenneth J. Hsu and William B.F. Ryan were collecting research data while aboard the oceanographic research vessel Glomar Challenger. 在海洋调查船Glomar Challenger号上致力收集调研资料 An objective of this particular cruise was to investigate the floor of the Mediterranean and to resolve questions about its geologic history. 这次特别巡航的一个目的是调查地中海的地层以及解决关于其地质历史的问题。 One question was related to evidence that the invertebrate fauna 无脊椎动物群(animals without spines) of the Mediterranean had changed abruptly突然的 about 6 million years ago. Most of the older organisms were nearly wiped out, although a few hardy species survived. A few managed to migrate into the Atlantic. Somewhat later, the migrants returned, bringing new species with them. Why did the near extinction and migrations occur? 大部分古老的生物都几乎灭绝了，尽管一些顽强的种类得以生存。一些动物成功地迁移到了大西洋。不久后，这些动物又回来了，并带回来新的物种。为什么这最近的动物灭绝和迁移会发生呢？ Another task for the Glomar Challenger’s scientists was to try to determine the origin of the domelike masses buried deep beneath the Mediterranean seafloor另一个任务是尝试去确定深埋在地中海海底穹顶状巨块的起源. These structures had been detected发现，检测到 years earlier by echo-sounding instruments回声测深仪, but they had never been penetrated从未被穿透过 in the course of drilling. Were they salt domes such as are common along the United States Gulf Coast墨西哥湾岸区, and if so, why should there have been so much solid crystalline水晶般的 salt beneath the floor of the Mediterranean? 它们是像美国海湾海岸一带的含盐圆顶状巨块吗？如果是，为什么在地中海海底之下会有这么多坚硬的结晶盐呢？ With question such as these clearly before them, the scientists aboard the Glomar Challenger processed to the Mediterranean to search for the answers. On August 23, 1970, they recovered a sample. The sample consisted of pebbles of gypsum and fragments of volcanic rock. 这个样本由石膏鹅卵石和火山岩碎块组成。 Not a single pebble was found that might have indicated that the pebbles came from the nearby continent. 没有一个能说明这些小石头来自附近大陆的鹅卵石被发现。这一句不好理解，出题也故意混淆概念。In the days following, samples of solid gypsum were repeatedly brought on deck as drilling operations penetrated the seafloor. 随着海底岩层穿透实验的进行，石膏固体样本被不断地放在甲板上。Furthermore, the gypsum was found to possess peculiarities of composition and structure组成和结构的特殊性 that suggested it had formed on desert flats. Sediment above and below the gypsum layer contained tiny marine fossils, indicating open-ocean conditions. 在石膏层上下的沉积物中包含了微小的海洋生物化石，这说明了是开放性的海洋环境。As they drilled into the central and deepest part of the Mediterranean basin, the scientists took solid, shiny, crystalline salt from the core barrel. 当钻到地中海盆地中心的最深处时，科学家们从钻管中获得了坚实的、光亮的结晶盐。Interbedded with the salt were thin layers of what appeared to be windblown silt. 跟结晶盐相互嵌在一起的薄层像是被风吹起的泥沙层。这里有题选两项：结晶盐和泥沙 The time had come to formulate a hypothesis. 时间明确地阐明了一个假设。The investigators theorized that about 20 million years ago, the Mediterranean was a broad seaway linked to the Atlantic by two narrow straits它通过两条狭窄的海峡与大西洋连接. Crustal movements closed the straits, and the landlocked Mediterranean began to evaporate蒸发. 地壳运动封闭了海峡，被陆地包围的地中海也开始蒸发。 Increasing salinity盐度 caused by the evaporation resulted in the extermination of scores of许多，大量 invertebrate species. Only a few organisms especially tolerant of very salty conditions remained. As evaporation continued, the remaining brine (salt water) became so dense that the calcium 钙sulfate硫酸盐 of the hard layer was precipitated沉淀的. 盐水浓度太高以致硬地层的硫酸钙发生沉淀。In the central deeper part of the basin流域, the last of the brine evaporated to precipitate more soluble sodium chloride (salt). 在盆地的中间深处，剩余盐水的持续蒸发形成更多的可溶的氯化钠（盐）。 Later, under the weight of overlying上覆盖的 sediments, this salt flowed plastically可塑性 upward to form salt domes. 后来，在上层沉淀物的重压下，盐向上形成了含盐的圆顶。 Before this happened, however, the Mediterranean was a vast desert 3,000 meters deep. Then, about 5.5 million years ago came the deluge洪水. As a result of crustal adjustments and faulting, the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean now connects to the Atlantic, opened, and water cascaded spectacularly back into the Mediterranean. 作为地壳调整和断层作用的结果，现在连接地中海和大西洋的直布罗陀海峡打开了，水流像瀑布一样壮观地涌回地中海。Turbulent waters tore into the hardened salt flats, broke them up, and ground them into the pebbles observed in the first sample taken by the Challenger. As the basin was refilled, normal marine organisms returned. Soon layer of oceanic ooze began to accumulate above the old hard layer. 湍急的水流冲击并摧毁了坚硬的含盐层，使把它们磨成了Challenger号获得的第一份样品中所观察到的鹅卵石。随着盆地的填充，普通的海洋生物又回来了。不久后海洋软泥层开始在老的硬地层上堆积。 The salt and gypsum, the faunal changes, and the unusual gravel provided abundant evidence that the Mediterranean was once a desert. 盐、石膏、动物区系的变更，还有不寻常的沙砾层都为地中海曾经是块沙漠的理论提供了充分的证据。 gypsum: a mineral made of calcium sulfate and water石膏 这一篇读得累死了，主要是生词太多，下面是译文： 1970年，地理学家Kenneth J. Hsu 和 William B.F. Ryan曾在海洋调查船Glomar Challenger号上致力收集调研资料。这次特别巡航的一个目的是调查地中海的地层以及解决关于其地质历史的问题。其中一个问题是有关地中海地区无脊椎动物（没有脊椎的动物）600百万年前发生剧变的证据。大部分古老的生物都几乎灭绝了，尽管一些顽强的种类得以生存。一些动物成功地迁移到了大西洋。不久后，这些动物又回来了，并带回来新的物种。为什么这最近的动物灭绝和迁移会发生呢？ Glomar Challenger号上科学家们的另一个任务是尝试去确定深埋在地中海海底穹顶状巨块的起源。这些结构在早些年被回声探测器探测过，但是它们在探测过程中从未被穿透。它们是像美国海湾海岸一带的含盐圆顶状巨块吗？如果是的话，为什么在地中海海底之下会有这么多坚硬的结晶盐呢？带着这些清楚摆在他们面前的问题，科学家们登上Glomar Challenger号前往地中海寻找答案。1970年8月23日，他们恢复了一个样本。这个样本由石膏鹅卵石和火山岩碎块组成。周围没有鹅卵石被发现，这可能说明这些小石头不来自附近的大陆。接下来的日子里，随着海底岩层穿透实验的进行，石膏固体样本被不断地放在甲板上。而且，这些膏状物的组成和结构特性表明它们形成于沙漠。在石膏层上下的沉积物中包含了微小的海洋生物化石，这说明了是开放性的海洋环境。当钻到地中海盆地中心的最深处时，科学家们从钻管中获得了坚实的、光亮的结晶盐。跟结晶盐相互嵌在一起的薄层像是被风吹起的泥沙层。时间明确地阐明了一个假设。调查者们构思了这样的理论：大约2000万年前，地中海是一条宽阔的航道，它通过两条狭窄的海峡与大西洋连接。地壳运动封闭了海峡，被陆地包围的地中海也开始蒸发。由蒸发引起的越来越高的盐度造成无脊椎动物种类的灭绝。只有一些能抵抗高盐度条件的物种保留下来。随着蒸发的继续进行，盐水浓度太高以致硬地层的硫酸钙发生沉淀。在盆地的中间深处，剩余盐水的持续蒸发形成更多的可溶的氯化钠（盐）。后来，在上层沉淀物的重压下，盐向上形成了含盐的圆顶。然而在这之前，地中海是一个3000米深的大沙漠。然后，550万年前发生了洪水。作为地壳调整和断层作用的结果，现在连接地中海和大西洋的直布罗陀海峡打开了，水流像瀑布一样壮观地涌回地中海。湍急的水流冲击并摧毁了坚硬的含盐层，使把它们磨成了Challenger号获得的第一份样品中所观察到的鹅卵石。随着盆地的填充，普通的海洋生物又回来了。不久后海洋软泥层开始在老的硬地层上堆积。盐、石膏、动物区系的变更，还有不寻常的沙砾层都为地中海曾经是块沙漠的理论提供了充分的证据。

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向你学习，很认真的精读！

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请问有没有题目的分析？文章分析得很人真，其实我觉得如果你时间不是很多的话你可以着重翻译难句，挑出自己不明白的话反复琢磨，这样比每句话都翻译节省时间，而且效果更好！

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TPO 7+2
Ancient Rome and Greece
古代罗马和希腊
There is a quality of cohesiveness凝聚力 about the Roman world that applied具备 neither to Greece nor perhaps to any other civilization, ancient or modern. Like the stone of Roman wall, which were held together both by the regularity of the design and by that peculiarly powerful Roman cement黏结剂, so the various parts of the Roman realm were bonded into a massive, monolithic entity by physical, organizational, and psychological controls. 罗马墙上的石块是靠设计的规整和特别有力的粘合剂而被固定在一起，与此相同罗马帝国的各个部分也因物理的、组织的和精神的束缚而组成了一个坚若磐石的整体。The physical bonds included the network of military garrisons, which were stationed in every province, and the network of stone-built roads that linked the provinces with Rome. The organizational bonds were based on the common principles of law and administration and on the universal army of officials who enforced common standards of conduct. The psychological controls were built on fear and punishment—on the absolute certainty that anyone or anything that threatened the authority of Rome would be utterly destroyed.
物理的束缚包括驻扎在每个省的戍卫军组成的网络和联通每个省与罗马的、用石头铺成的道路网络。组织上的羁绊则基于法律和行政的一般原则，以及遍布各地、统一行动的军政府。精神上的控制则建立在恐惧和惩罚上——毫无疑问的是任何人，或任何事，只要威胁到罗马的权威，都终将被摧毁。

The source of Roman obsession with unity and cohesion may well have lain in the pattern of Rome’s early development. Whereas Greece had grown from scores of scattered 分散的cities, Rome grew from one single organism. 希腊是从二十几个分散的城邦发展而来，然而罗马则是从单个组织发展而来。While the Greek world had expanded along the Mediterranean seas lanes海中航线, the Roman world was assembled（装配）组成 by territorial conquest.
通过领土的占领而壮大 Of course, the contrast is not quite so stark明显的: in Alexander the Great the Greeks had found the greatest territorial conqueror of all time; and the Romans, once they moved outside Italy, did not fail to learn the lessons of sea power. 在亚历山大大帝时期，希腊找到了他们整个历史中最大的领地征服者；罗马人虽曾一度迁移到意大利之外，但他们却没有荒废海洋的力量。 Yet the essential difference is undeniable. The Key to the Greek world lay in its high-powered ships; the key to Roman power lay in its marching legions. The Greeks were wedded to the sea; the Romans, to the land. The Greek was a sailor at heart; the Roman, a landsman.然而，他们之间本质的区别是不容否认的。希腊世界的关键是强大的船队，而罗马帝国的关键则是他们行进的部队。希腊人死守着海洋，罗马人则死守着土地。希腊人是天生的水手，罗马人则是陆上强兵。文采啊文采~~

Certainly, in trying to explain the Roman phenomenon, one would have to place great emphasis on this almost instinct for the territorial imperative.领域占有是他们的天性，学习这个句式 Roman priorities lay in the organization, exploitation, and defense of their territory.
罗马人的天性就在于对领土的组织、扩张和防御In all probability it was the fertile富饶的 plain of Latium, where the Latins who founded Rome originated, that created the habits and skills of landed settlement, landed property, landed economy, landed administration, and a land-based society. From this arose the Roman genius for military organization and orderly government. In turn, a deep attachment to the land, and to the stability which rural life engenders, fostered the Roman virtues反过来，对土地以及稳定乡村生活的深深的依恋孕育了罗马人的品格: gravitas, a sense of responsibility, peitas, a sense of devotion to family and country, and iustitia, a sense of the natural order.

Modern attitudes to Roman civilization range from the infinitely impressed to the thorough disgusted.
从无限的崇尚到彻底的反感As always, there are the power worshippers权威的崇拜者, especially among historians, who are predisposed倾向于 to admire whatever is strong, who feel more attracted to the might of Rome than to the subtlety精明 of Greece. who不由自主的推崇强大，他们对罗马权力的欣赏远胜于对希腊狡黠的欣赏At the same time, there is a solid body of opinion固化的观点 that dislikes Rome. For many, Rome is at best the imitator and the continuator of Greece on a larger scale. Greek civilization had quality; Rome, mere quantity. 对于很多人而言，罗马至多不过是对希腊更大规模的模仿和延续，希腊文明拥有质量，罗马则仅仅拥有数量。Greece was the inventor; Rome, the research and development division分支.
Such indeed was the opinion of some of the more intellectual Romans.” had the Greeks held novelty新奇 in such disdain鄙视 as we,” asked Horace in his epistle, “what work of ancient date would now exist?”这些实际上是一些高智商罗马人的观点。“难道希腊人创造出新的事物后，我们就会被认为是如此的微不足道吗？”Horace 在他的信件中问道“古时候的什么工作现在还存在呢？”最后这里没有看懂。。。!!!!!!!
Rome’s debt to Greece was enormous. The Romans adopted Greek religion and moral philosophy. In literature, Greek writers were consciously used as models by their Latin successors. It was absolutely accepted that an educated Roman should be fluent in Greek. In speculative philosophy and the sciences, the Romans made virtually no advance on early achievements.
在推理哲学和科学上，罗马人实际上没有超过前期希腊的成就。
Yet it would be wrong to suggest that Rome was somehow a junior partner in Greco-Roman civilization. The Roman genius was projected into new spheres—especially into those of law, military organization, administration, and engineering. Moreover, the tensions that arose within the Roman state produced literary and artistic sensibilities of the highest order. It was no accident that many leading Roman soldiers and statesmen were writers of high caliber.
然而如果认为罗马是希腊-罗马文化的晚辈那就错了。罗马的天才们突破了新的领域—尤其是在法律、军队的组织、管理学和工程学上。而且，由罗马国家内部产生的压力促使文学和艺术的造诣达到最高水平。所以很多罗马的高级军官和政治家们都是高素质的作家。

wendychuengUID：2811319

TPO 7+3
Agriculture, Iron, and the Bantu Peoples

农业、铁器和班图人

There is evidence of agriculture in Africa prior to 3000 B.C. It may have developed independently, but many scholars believe that the spread of agriculture and iron throughout Africa linked it to the major centers of the Near East and Mediterranean world. 它可能是独立发展的，但很多学者认为农业和铁器在非洲的传播将费中与近东的中心和地中海世界联系了起来。 The drying up of what is now the Sahara desert had pushed many peoples to the south into sub-Sahara Africa. These peoples settled at first in scattered hunting-and-gathering bands, although in some places near lakes and rivers, people who fished, with a more secure food supply, lived in larger population concentrations. Agriculture seems to have reached these people from the Near East, since the first domesticated crops were millets and sorghums whose origins are not African but west Asian. 农业技术可能来自于近东最终为非洲人所知，因为最初驯化的农作物是起源于西亚而不是非洲的小米和高粱。 Once the idea of planting diffused, Africans began to develop their own crops, such as certain varieties of rice, and they demonstrated a continued receptiveness to new imports. 一旦种植的思想传播开来，非洲人就开始培育他们自己的农作物，比如某些水稻，并且他们一直愿意接受新的外来作物。 The proposed areas of the domestication of African crops lie in a band that extends from Ethiopia across southern Sudan to West Africa. Subsequently, other crops, such as bananas, were introduced from Southeast Asia.人们认为驯化非洲作物的地区从埃塞俄比亚一直延伸到苏丹的南部，再到西非。接下来，其他的作物，比如香蕉，就从南亚传入到非洲了。
Livestock also came from outside Africa. Cattle were introduced from Asia, as probably were domestic sheep and goats. Horses were apparently introduced by the Hyksos invaders of Egypt (1780-1560 B.C.) and then spread across the Sudan to West Africa. Rock paintings in the Sahara indicate that horses and chariots were used to traverse the desert and that by 300-200 B.C., there were trade routes across the Sahara. Horses were adopted by peoples of the West African savannah, and later their powerful cavalry骑兵 forces allowed them to carve out开拓
large empires.有题~ 西非大草原上的人们使用马匹，后来他们强大的骑兵力量使他们缔造了庞大的帝国。Finally, the camel was introduced around the first century A.D. This was an important innovation, because the camel’s abilities to thrive in harsh desert conditions and to carry large loads cheaply made it an effective and efficient means of transportation.有题~ The camel transformed the desert from a barrier into a still difficult, but more accessible, route of trade and communication. 最后，骆驼大约在公元一世纪被引入到非洲。这是一次重要革新，因为骆驼有能力生存在恶劣的沙漠环境，另外，骆驼可以便宜的运输大量的载荷，这使得它们成为了一种方便高效的运输方式。骆驼使得沙漠从障碍转换为一条虽依然艰难但已经更加容易接近的商路和交流通道。
Iron came from West Asia, although its routes of diffusion扩散 were somewhat different than those of agriculture. Most of Africa presents a curious case in which societies moved directly from a technology of stone to iron without passing through the intermediate stage of copper or bronze metallurgy, although some early copper-working sites have been found in West Africa. 大部分非洲表现出一种奇怪的现象，那就是他们社会直接从石器时代进步到铁器时代，而没有经过中间过渡的铜器或青铜器冶金术，尽管在西亚发现了一些早期使用铜器的地区。Knowledge of iron making penetrated into the forest and savannahs of West Africa at roughly the same time that iron making was reaching Europe. Evidence of iron making has been found in Nigeria, Ghana, and Mali.
This technological shift cause profound changes in the complexity of African societies. Iron represented power. In West Africa the blacksmith who made tools and functions. Iron hoes, which made the land more productive, and iron weapons, which made the warrior more powerful, had symbolic meaning in a number of West Africa societies. Those who knew the secrets of making iron gained ritual and sometimes political power. 科技的革新对非洲社会的复杂性产生了深刻的改变。铁器代表着力量。在西非的很多社会里，生产工具的铁匠、使土地更多产的铁锄、使战士更强大的铁制武器都有着象征意义。这些对西非社会有着标志性的意义。那些掌握了制铁技术的人们常可获得宗教权力，有时候获得政治权力。有题~~
Unlike in the Americas, where metallurgy冶金 was a very late and limited development, Africans had iron from a relatively early date, developing ingenious furnaces to produce the high heat needed for production and to control the amount of air that reached the carbon and iron ore necessary for making iron. Much of Africa moved right into the Iron Age, taking the basic technology and adapting it to local; conditions and resources. 美洲的冶铁技术发展的非常晚，并且有限，而非洲则完全不同，他们的冶铁技术从相对较早的时期就开始发展；他们制造了精巧的高炉以产生冶铁所需要的高温，并能控制与碳和铁矿石接触的空气用量以满足冶铁的需要。有题~~大部分非洲人直接进入了铁器时代，他们吸取了冶铁的基本技术并使之与当地的条件和资源相适应。
The diffusion of agriculture and later of iron was accompanied by a great movement of people who may have carried these innovations. 农业和后来冶铁技术是伴随着那些已经掌握了新技术的人们的大迁徙而传播的。 These people probably originated in eastern Nigeria. Their migration may have been set in motion by an increase in population caused by a movement of peoples fleeing the desiccation, or drying up, of the Sahara. They spoke a language, prior-Bantu (“Bantu” means “the people”), which is the parent tongue of a language of a large number of Bantu languages still spoken throughout sub-Sahara Africa.有题考为什么现在还有说这种语言的~ Why and how these people spread out into central and southern Africa remains a mystery, but archaeologists believe that their iron weapons allowed them to conquer their hunting-gathering opponents, who still used stone implements. Still, the process is uncertain, and peaceful migration—or simply rapid demographic growth—may have also caused the Bantu explosion. 不过考古学家们相信他们的铁制武器足以让他们战胜那些靠采集打猎为生的敌人，因为这些人仍然利用石质工具。不过过程仍然无人知道，另外，和平的移民或者简单的人口增长，都可能导致班图的扩张。三点要点，有题~

ximeng123UID：2838922

好东西！