新概念英语III讲义

Lesson 38 The first calendar

Comprehension questions

1. Who will be in a unique position when they come to record the history of our own times?

2. What is steadily accumulating?

3. Will future historians have to rely solely on the written word?

4. What other information will they have?

5. What about the historian attempting to reconstruct the distant past?

6. Does he have to deduce information from scanty clues?

7. Even insignificant remains are important. Why?

8. Up to now, when have historians assumed that calendars came into being?

9. Does recent scientific evidence indicate that this is correct or incorrect?

10. Historians have long been puzzled by dots, lines and symbols, haven't they?

11. Where have these dots, etc. been engraved?

12. When did the last Ice Age begin?

13. When did it end?

14. Who lived by hunting and fishing during this period?

15. What are the marks connected with?

16. What is the code in fact?

17. Were the hunting scenes just a form of art?

18. Did they have a definite meaning?

19. Is there a relation between the paintings and the markings that accompany them?

20. Man was making an effort to understand the seasons much earlier than has been supposed.

How much earlier?

_________2. only; not involving sb/sth else

_________3. connected with a very early stage of development

_________4. large amount or quantity of

_________5. to form an opinion about sth based on the information or evidence that is available _________6. to show relation or connection between

_________7. gradually; without interruptions

_________8. the coming of an important event

_________9. a large elephant that lived thousands of years ago and has now died out

_________10. a member of a tribe that travels around to find grass for its animals instead of living in one plane

_________11. a system of words, letters, or numbers or symbols that represent a message

_________12. in a way that appears to be true but may in fact not be

_________13. too little in amount for what is needed

_________14. each of the shapes of the moon as we see it from the earth at different times of the month

_________15. to show an image of sb/sth in a picture

_________16. the process of time passing

_________17. to cut words or pictures on wood, stone or metal

_________18. of little value or importance

Learn the following

1. bewilder: [usually passive] to confuse sb

She was totally bewildered by his sudden change of mood.

bewildered: adj. He turned around, with a bewildered look on his face.

bewildering: adj. There is a bewildering variety of mobile phones available in this store.

2. as it were: used when a speaker is giving his or her own impression of a situation or

expressing sth in a particular way 可以说；在一定程度上

He became, as it were, a man without a country.

3. shed: to send light over sth; to let light fall somewhere 把光照到（或洒在）…上

The candles shed a soft glow on her face.

shed light on: to make sth clear and easy to understand 使清晰；容易明白

Your explanation shed some light on what is really a very complicated subject.

Fill in the blanks with correct forms of the words phrases given

shed light on come into being be faced with rely on agriculture than

bewildering assumption accompany attempt available unique accumulate definite primitive engrave nomad select deduce correlate passage depict effort which

The first calendar

Future historians will be in a _________position when they come to record the history of our own times. They will hardly know which facts to _________ from the great mass of evidence that steadily __________. What is more, they will not have to _________ solely __________the written word. Films, videos, CDs and CD-ROMs are just some of the __________ amount of information they will have. They will be able, as it were, to see and hear us in action. But the historian __________ to reconstruct the distant past _________ always __________ a difficult task. He has to ___________what he can from the few scanty clues_________. Even seemingly insignificant remains can ________ interesting __________ the history of early man.

Up to now, historians have assumed that calendars _______________ with the advent of___________, for then man was faced with a real need to understand something about the seasons. Recent scientific evidence seems to indicate that this __________is incorrect.

Historians have long been puzzled by dots, lines and symbols which have been __________ on walls, bones, and the ivory tusks of mammoths. The ___________ who made these markings lived by hunting and fishing during the last Ice Age __________began about 35,000 B.C. and ended about 10,000 B.C. By _____________markings made in various parts of the world, historians have been able to read this difficult code. They have found that it is connected with the_________ of days and the phases of the moon. It is, in fact, a ___________ type of calendar. It has long been known that the hunting scenes___________ on walls were not simply a form of artistic expression. They had a ___________ meaning, for they were as near as early man could get to writing. It is possible that there is a definite relation between these paintings and the markings that sometimes ____________ them. It seems that man was making a real ____________ to understand the seasons 20,000 years earlier ___________has been supposed.