新概念英语85年上外美音版第四册 第1课

　　Lesson 1 Finding fossil man 发现化石人We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write.

But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas 2----legends handed down from one generation of storytellers to another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations 4 of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.

But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first‘modern men’ came from.

Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. 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.

New words and expressions  生词短语

recount /ri'kaunt/ v.叙述     / ' rei'kaunt/ 再数一次

record / ' rek[d/ /ri' kC:d/ 第一个音节带重音，名前动后

叙述：recount :  emotionless  重复

describe

depict 5： a little emotional

narrate 6： temporal&spacial 根据时间或空间顺序描述。

portray 7：描述

saga 1 /'sa:g[/ n.英雄故事  描述的内容mostly real 北欧海盗活动的故事

legend /'ledV[nd/ n.传说，传奇  unreal e.g robin 8 hood 9

anthropologist/ 'AnWr['pCl[dVist/ n.人类学家

anthrop：人

philosophere :philo＋sopher|爱＋智慧＝哲学家

philanthropist : 慈善家（对人有爱心的人）

anthropology 10 :人类学

带-gy结尾的都是学科：biology 生物学   geography 地理学  ecology 生态学

remote/ ri'm[ut/ n.遥远

ancestor / 'Ansest[/ n.祖先

an- 在前面

forefather,forebear ，predecessor 11祖先

rot/ rCt/ v.烂掉

leave me rot.＝leave me along

rot to death.

soon ripe,soon rotten.

decay 国家民族逐渐衰亡 decompose 12 逐渐衰竭 deteriorate 13关系逐渐恶化

trace /treis/ n.痕迹，踪迹

trace the problem

i follow your trace＝i follow where you go

polynesia 波利尼西亚

poly-多

polyandric: a wife with more than one husband

polygeny : a husband with more than one wife

flint /flint/ n.燧石  flinting hearted

fossil /  ' fCsl/ n. 化石    cobble 鹅卵石

Notes on the text  课文注释

read of 读到

谈到：speak of ,talk of ,know of,hear of

near east：近东 mediterranean 14, south europe,north afric

far east

非限定性从句，表原因

oral(spoken) language is earlier than written language.

precede :什么在什么之前，不用比较，直接跟名词

counterpart: two things or two people have the same position

oral(spoken) language is earlier than written counterpart.

preserve: 保留，保存（腌制）

如果句中有only，那后面的表语结构就要用to do sth,而不是doing sth.

storyteller: 讲故事的人

fortuneteller, palmreader: 算命先生

migration 3 ：移民　　1.migrant  2.immigrant

v. migrate:迁移，迁徙

migratory 15 bird:候鸟

none: no body

people＋s　民族

if they had any: 即便是有

his relatives,if he had  any,never went to visit him when he was hospitalized.

find out千方百计，费尽周折＝explore

modern men :the men who were like ourselves

however－anywhere you want ,加逗号

but,yet－不加标点，only at the beginning of the sentence

therefore－自由

so－自由

tool:小工具

instrument:实验器械

equipment:设备

shape:成型；教育，改造

may also have:表推测

peel:果皮

leather:皮革

hide:兽皮　cowhide:牛皮

without (any) trace:无影无踪