Archeology is always full of mystery and appeal ... 

   本周RE學(xué)習(xí)了考古里的神秘現(xiàn)象，沒有想到同學(xué)們是那么興奮，下了課還繼續(xù)挖掘資料和紀錄片來分享。其實我很高興，感謝這門課， 讓英語學(xué)習(xí)突破了英語本身， 成為一個工具去打開世界的大門。比起單純教英語，我更在意正面引導(dǎo)學(xué)生一個正確的世界觀和價值觀。世界是神秘的， 歷史確實充滿了未知的神秘， 但是這不應(yīng)該成為一個負面的恐懼， 而應(yīng)該是充滿興奮和驚喜的猜測過程。

  RE2 UNIT 3 兩篇課文的基本結(jié)構(gòu)都相似， 提出猜想和推斷過程， 有反駁也有承認的部分。這種類似推理破案的神秘，引起了極大的興趣。當然， 好的材料如果有好的老師， 好的氛圍來引導(dǎo)，才能體現(xiàn)出價值。聽課和學(xué)習(xí)的時候那種積極，真的是我從來沒有見過，從課后交給我的課本，我就可以看出他們的仔細， 真的是連老師一個字也沒錯過。 

滑動查看更多圖片

  筆記本更是認真和整齊

滑動查看更多圖片

   課后一起精聽聽寫， 跟讀， 分享紀錄片... 爭先恐后地給我反饋， 我真心感動。   

    那今天蜜雪老師也來貢獻一篇科學(xué)美國人60秒的考古文章吧，再給大家朗讀錄音。

     以下文章選自2020年4月科學(xué)美國人雜志考古專欄，特意挑選出來的。

     同時給大家朗讀這篇文章，我今天語速較快因為模仿新聞節(jié)目。

古代尿液的考古之窗--蜜雪老師來自蜜雪英語00:0002:54

   This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Bob Hirshon.

 A 10,000-year-old archaeological site in central Turkey is helping scientists unlock the region's pee-historic past. That's right: the salty residue of ancient urine can reveal how and when humans went from hunter-gatherers to herder-farmers who kept and raised animals in their settlements.

   土耳其中部地區(qū)一處有10000年歷史的考古遺址，正在幫助科學(xué)家解開該地區(qū)的小便歷史。沒錯：古代尿液中的鹽分殘留能揭示出人類如何以及何時從狩獵采集者轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)樵诙ň拥亓糇『惋曫B(yǎng)動物的放牧種植者。

   "And so we thought, okay, what's a process that an animal would go through if it was being kept at the site, whether it's corralled between buildings or kept in other specific areas?"

  Archaeologist Jordan Abell from Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. He's been studying the settlement of A??kl? H?yük, located on a 16-meter-high mound near Turkey's Melendiz River.

   "We thought, okay, well, these animals would be urinating all the time that they were on the mound."

  “所以我們想，好吧，如果動物被保留在這個地點，無論是被圈在建筑物之間還是被放到其他特定地方，它們會經(jīng)歷什么過程？”

  哥倫比亞大學(xué)拉蒙特-多爾蒂地球觀測站的考古學(xué)家喬丹·艾貝爾說到。他一直在研究位于土耳其孟雷迪茲河附近16米高土堆上的 A??kl? H?yük定居點。

  “我們想，嗯，這些動物在土堆上生活時一直都會小便?！?/span>

 In the dry climate of central Turkey, the sodium, chloride and nitrates from all that animal excretion would be trapped in the layers of earth onto which they were originally peed. Excavating those salts, layer by layer, should provide a timeline of animal populations at the site.

  "And so we calculated, using a simple mass-balance approach, an estimate of the number of organisms that it would take to produce these large quantities of salt."

Abell and his colleagues found that from 10,000 years ago to about 9,700 years ago, the site jumped from having just a few large organisms' worth of whiz to more than 1,800.

  在土耳其中部干燥的氣候中，所有動物排泄物中的鈉、氯和硝酸鹽都會留在它們原來小便地點之上的土層上。一層一層地挖掘這些鹽，應(yīng)該可以提供該地點的動物種群時間表。

  “因此，利用簡單的質(zhì)量平衡方法，我們推算出產(chǎn)生這些大量鹽所需的生物體數(shù)量?！?/span>

  艾貝爾和同事發(fā)現(xiàn)，從10,000年前到大約9700年前，這個地點的大型生物數(shù)量從僅有幾只躍升至了1800多只。

  Of course, people pee too, so the researchers had to figure out which salts were from humans and which were from their animals. Luckily, the location of the salts provided clues—for example, high concentrations in narrow alleyways too small for animals.

  "The general thought is that they might have been standing on their roofs and just peeing into these alleyways."

Something that goats and sheep do rarely, if ever. By subtracting contributions from humans, the researchers calculated that there had to be between 800 and 1,300 sheep and goats to account for the remaining pee. The study appears in the journal Science Advances.

  當然，人類也會小便，因此研究人員必須弄清楚哪些鹽來自人類，哪些鹽來自動物。幸運的是，這些鹽的位置提供了線索——比如，在對動物來說過于狹窄的小巷，鹽濃度很高。

“普遍想法是，他們可能一直站在頂上，向著這些小巷小便?！?/span>

  如果山羊和綿羊這樣做過的話，那也是極少的情況。通過減去人類小便的情況，研究人員計算出必須有800到1300只綿羊和山羊才能產(chǎn)生剩余尿液。這項研究發(fā)表在《科學(xué)進展》期刊上。

  If true, it means that animal domestication didn't originate solely in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia, as many of us learned in history class.

"Our technique has been able to support that idea, that somewhere outside the Fertile Crescent, in this case in central Turkey, was developing this process at near the same time as has been shown elsewhere within the Fertile Crescent."

  An important discovery, since the advent of herding and farming was a turning point for human civilization, leading to cities and modern society.

  Abell points out that many archaeological sites have little in the way of physical evidence like bones and artifacts, but presumably all of them have pee. So his advice for other archaeologists who want to track animal and human populations? Look out for number one.

  Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Bob Hirshon.

如果屬實，那就意味著動物馴養(yǎng)并非像我們大多數(shù)人從歷史課上學(xué)到的那樣，僅僅起源于美索不達米亞的新月沃土。

“我們的技術(shù)已經(jīng)能夠支持這一觀點，即在新月沃土之外的其他地方，比如這項研究中的土耳其中部地區(qū)，幾乎在同一時間發(fā)展著新月沃土內(nèi)出現(xiàn)的這一過程?！?/span>

   這是一項重要發(fā)現(xiàn)，因為畜牧業(yè)和農(nóng)業(yè)的出現(xiàn)是人類文明的轉(zhuǎn)折點，繼而催生了城市和現(xiàn)代社會。

  艾貝爾指出，許多考古遺址幾乎沒有骨骼和器物等實物證據(jù)，但大概所有遺址上都有尿液存在。那他對其他想追蹤動物和人類種群的考古學(xué)家有何建議？留意尿液。

   謝謝大家收聽科學(xué)美國人——60秒科學(xué)。我是鮑勃·赫爾尚。