$课文 1 发现化石人1
We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write
我们从书籍中可读到5,000 年前近东发生的事情,那里的人最早学会了写字
But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write
但直到现在 ,世界上有些地方,人们还不会书写
The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas -- legends handed down from one generation of story tales to another
他们保存历史的唯一办法是将历史当作传说讲述,由讲述人一代接一代地将史实描述为传奇故事口传下来
These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, 这些传说是有用的,因为他们告诉我们很久以前生活在这里的移民的一些事情
but none could write down what they did
但是没有人能写下来
Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from
人类学家过去不清楚如今生活在太平洋诸岛上的