剑桥雅思13Test3阅读passage3

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 27-40, which are based on Reading Passage 3 below. 

Whatever happened to the Harappan Civilisation?哈拉帕文明究竟发生了什么?

New research sheds light on the disappearance of an ancient society新研究揭示了一个古代社会的消失

The Harappan Civilisation of ancient Pakistan and India flourished 5,000 years ago, but a thousand years later their cities were abandoned. The Harappan Civilisation was a sophisticated Bronze Age society who built ‘megacities’ and traded internationally in luxury craft products, and yet seemed to have left almost no depictions of themselves. But their lack of self-imagery - at a time when the Egyptians were carving and painting representations of themselves all over their temples - is only part of the mystery.

5000年前,位于古巴基斯坦和古印度的哈拉帕文明蓬勃发展,但一千年后它们的城市荒废了。哈拉帕文明曾是一个成熟的青铜器时代社会,他们曾建立了“大型城市”,并在手工艺品方面进行国际贸易,但几乎没有留下任何关于自身的描述。与同一时期埃及人在神庙内雕刻绘画自身形象相比,哈拉帕文明缺乏自身的形象,但它的神秘之处还远不止于此。

There is plenty of archaeological evidence to tell us about the rise of the Harappan Civilisation, but relatively little about its fall，’ explains archaeologist Dr Cameron Petrie of the University of Cambridge. ‘As populations increased, cities were built that had great baths, craft workshops, palaces and halls laid out in distinct sectors. Houses were arranged in blocks, with wide main streets and narrow alleyways, and many had their own wells and drainage systems. It was very much a “thriving” civilisation.’ Then around 2100 BC, a transformation began. Streets went uncleaned, buildings started to be abandoned, and ritual structures fell out of use. After their final demise, a millennium passed before really large-scale cities appeared once more in South Asia.

“大量的考古证据表明哈拉帕文明的兴起,但与之相比,表明它衰落的证据少之又少。”剑桥大学考古学家卡梅伦·皮特里博士解释道“随着人口的增加,城市不断建立,大型浴池、手工作坊、宫殿和府邸分布在不同的城区。房屋按街区排列,伴有宽阔的主街道和狭窄的小巷,其中许多家庭带有自己的水井和排水系统。它确曾是一种十分‘繁荣’的文明。”大约在公元前2100年情况开始发生变化。街道肮脏不堪,房屋被废弃,宗教场所也废弃不用。自从哈拉帕文明消亡后的一千多年,在南亚才又一次兴起真正大规模的城市。

Some have claimed that major glacier-fed rivers changed their course, dramatically affecting the water supply and agriculture; or that the cities could not cope with an increasing population, they exhausted their resource base, the trading economy broke down or they succumbed to invasion and conflict; and yet others that climate change caused an environmental change that affected food and water provision. 'It is unlikely that there was a single cause for the decline of the civilisation. But the fact is, until now, we have had little solid evidence from the area for most of the key elements，，said Petrie. ‘A lot of the archaeological debate has really only been wellargued speculation. ，

有一些人认为,这是因为冰川融汇的河流改变了河道,这极大地影响了水源供给和农业生产;还有人认为,城市无法容纳逐渐增长的人口,它们耗尽了自己的资源,贸易经济崩解,它们屈服于外来侵略和冲突;还有一些人认为,是因为气候变化导致了环境变化,这就影响了食物和水源供给。“一种文明的衰落不可能只是由个原因造成的。但是事实上,到目前为止,我们还没有从该地区获得确凿的证据来支撑这业因素"皮特里先生补充说。“许多考古学的争论实际上仅仅是合理的猜测。

A research team led by Petrie, together with Dr Ravindanath Singh of Banaras Hindu University in India, found early in their investigations that many of the archaeological sites were not where they were supposed to be, completely altering understanding of the way that this region was inhabited in the past. When they carried out a survey of how the larger area was settled in relation to sources of water, they found inaccuracies in the published geographic locations of ancient settlements ranging from several hundred metres to many kilometres. They realisedthat any attempts to use the existing data were likely to be fundamentally flawed. Over the course of several seasons of fieldwork they carried out new surveys, finding an astonishing 198 settlement sites that were previously unknown.

皮特里带领的-个研究团队与印度巴纳拉扌斯印度大学的拉文达纳·辛格博士一起,在他们早期的调查中发现,许多考古遗址并非在它们的真正位置,这完全改变了人们对此地作为遗址的看法。他们调查周边地区过去如何临水而居时,发现那些已经公布的古代定居点的地理位置存在不准确之处,与实际距离相差几百米至几千米他们意识到直接使用现有的数据很可能导致根本性的错误,经过几个季节的野外实地考察,他们开展了一项新的研究,发现了多达198个不为人知的聚居点。

Now, research published by Dr Yama Dixit and Professor David Hodell, both from Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, has provided the first definitive evidence for climate change affecting the plains of north-western India, where hundreds of Harappan sites are known to have been situated. The researchers gathered shells of Melanoides tuberculata snails from the sediments of an ancient lake and used geochemical analysis as a means of tracing the climate history of the region. ‘As today, the major source of water into the lake is likely to have been the summer monsoon，’ says Dixit. ‘But we have observed that there was an abrupt change about 4,100 years ago, when the amount of evaporation from the lake exceeded the rainfall 一 indicative of a drought.’ Hodell adds: 'We estimate that the weakening of the Indian summer monsoon climate lasted about 200 years before recovering to the previous conditions, which we still see today. ，

目前,来自剑桥大学地球科学学部的亚玛·迪克西特博士和大卫·霍德尔教授联合发表的研究报告用确凿的证据表明,气候变化影响了印度西北部平原地区,那里正是数百个哈拉帕定居点的所在地。研究人员从一个古老的湖泊沉积物中采集了瘤拟黑螺蜗牛壳,用地球化学分析法追踪该地区气候的演变过程。“如今,流入湖泊的水源主要来自夏季的降雨。”迪克西特说道,“但是我们注意到大约在4100年前,情况发生了急剧的变化,当时湖泊的蒸发量超过降雨量——这预示着干旱”霍徳尔教授补充说:“我们估计印度夏季的降雨气候出现了200多年的持续减弱之后才恢复到以前的状况,我们今天仍然能看到。

It has long been thought that other great Bronze Age civilisations also declined at a similar time, with a global-scale climate event being seen as the cause. While it is possible that these local-scale processes were linked, the real archaeological interest lies in understanding the impact of these larger-scale events on different environments and different populations. ‘Considering the vast area of the Harappan Civilisation with its variable weather systems，’ explains Singh, ‘it is essential that we obtain more climate data from areas close to the two great cities at Mohenjodaro and Harappa and also from the Indian Punjab•’

长期以来,人们一直认。为其他青铜器时代的文明也在相似的时期衰落,全球气候变化被视为主要原因。尽管很可能这些局部的变化有所关联,但是考古学家真正的兴趣在于研究大范围环境变化对不同环境和人口的影响。辛格解释说:鉴于哈拉帕文明区域广阔,气候多变,我们必须从摩享约达罗和哈拉帕这两大城市附近的地区以及印度旁遮普获得更多的气候数据。

Petrie and Singh's team is now examining archaeological records and trying to understand details of how people led their lives in the region five millennia ago. They are analysing grains cultivated at the time, and trying to work out whether they were grown under extreme conditions of water stress, and whether they were adjusting the combinations of crops they were growing for different weather systems. They are also looking at whether the types of pottery used, and other aspects of their material culture, were distinctive to specific regions or were more similar across larger areas. This gives us insight into the types of interactive networks that the population was involved in, and whether those changed.

皮特里和辛格的研究小组正在研究考古记录,并试图了解5000年前人们在该地区的生活状况,他们正在分析当时栽培的谷物,试图确定这些谷物是否是在极端恶劣的缺水条件下长出来的,以及人们是否会调整不同的作物搭配,以适应不同的天气条件。他们也在研究人们所使用的陶器以及其他物质文明是各地互不相同还是周遭大致相似。这帮助我们一窥当时人们之间互动的方式,以又这些方式是否有变化。

Petrie believes that archaeologists are in a unique position to investigate how past societies responded to environmental and climatic change. ‘By investigating responses to environmental pressures and threats, we can learn from the past to engage with the public, and the relevant governmental and administrative bodies, to be more proactive in issues such as the management and administration of water supply, the balance of urban and rural development, and the importance of preserving cultural heritage in the future.’

皮特里认为考古学家拥有-一个特殊的角度来研究古代社会如何应寸环境和气候变化,他说:“通过研究过去如何应对环境压力和挑战,我们可以从中借鉴、来与公众以及相关的政府和行政机构进行沟通,在供水管理和实践、城乡平衡发是以及未来保护文化遗产的重要性等问题上未雨绸缪。

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