$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。

2. 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。

3. 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。

4. 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。

5. but none could write down what they did.

但是没有人能写下来。

6. 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波利尼西亚人的祖先来自何方，

7. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.

当地人的传说却告诉人们：其中一部分是约在2,000年前从印度尼西亚迁来的。

8. But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas,if they had any, are forgotten.