Finding fossil man新概念英語課堂筆記

Finding fossil man 發現化石人

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----legends handed down from one generation of storytellers to another. 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. 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.

ROBIN PLACE Finding fossil man

New words and expressions 生詞短語

recount /ri'kaunt/ v.敍述/ ' rei'kaunt/ 再數一次

record / ' rek[d/ /ri' kC:d/ 第一個音節帶重音，名前動後

敍述：recount : emotionless 重複

describe

depict： a little emotional

narrate： temporal&spacial 根據時間或空間順序描述。

portray：描述

saga /'sa:g[/ n.英雄故事 描述的'內容mostly real 北歐海盜活動的故事

legend /'ledV[nd/ n.傳説，傳奇 unreal e.g robin hood

anthropologist/ 'AnWr['pCl[dVist/ n.人類學家

anthrop：人

philosophere :philo＋sopher|愛＋智慧＝哲學家

philanthropist : 慈善家（對人有愛心的人）

anthropology :人類學

帶-gy結尾的都是學科：biology 生物學geography 地理學 ecology 生態學

remote/ ri'm[ut/ n.遙遠

ancestor / 'Ansest[/ n.祖先

an- 在前面

forefather,forebear ，predecessor祖先

rot/ rCt/ v.爛掉

leave me rot.＝leave me along

rot to death.

soon ripe,soon rotten.

decay 國家民族逐漸衰亡 decompose 逐漸衰竭 deteriorate關係逐漸惡化

trace /treis/ n.痕跡，蹤跡

trace the problem

i follow your trace＝i follow where you go

polynesia 波利尼西亞

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 鵝卵石

Notes on the text 課文註釋

read of 讀到

談到：speak of ,talk of ,know of,hear of

near east：近東 mediterranean, south europe,north afric

far east

非限定性從句，表原因

oral(spoken) language is earlier than written language.

precede :什麼在什麼之前，不用比較，直接跟名詞

counterpart: two things or two people have the same position

oral(spoken) language is earlier than written counterpart.

preserve: 保留，保存（醃製）

如果句中有only，那後面的表語結構就要用to do sth,而不是doing sth.

storyteller: 講故事的人

fortuneteller, palmreader: 算命先生

migration ：移民１）migrant

v. migrate:遷移，遷徙

migratory bird:候鳥

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千方百計，費盡周折＝explore

modern men :the men who were like ourselves

however－anywhere you want ,加逗號

but,yet－不加標點，only at the beginning of the sentence

therefore－自由

so－自由

tool:小工具

instrument:實驗器械

equipment:設備

shape:成型；教育，改造

may also have:表推測

peel:果皮

leather:皮革

hide:獸皮 cowhide:牛皮

without (any) trace:無影無蹤

２）immigrant