剑4Test4阅读译文Passage2-考古学的本质和目的

新航道雅思为各位考生推荐复习材料-剑4 T4 阅读译文 P2-考古学的本质和目的,本单元其他相关译文，请：剑4 T4 阅读译文 P1-人类的运动极限没有尽头。

　　Passage2

　　参考译文

　　THE NATURE AND AIMS OF ARCHAEOLOGY

　　考古学的本质和目的

　　Archaeology is partly the discovery of the treasures of the past, partly the careful work of the scientific analyst, partly the exercise of the creative imagination. It is toiling in the sun on an excavation in the Middle East, it is working with living Inuit in the snows of Alaska, and it is investigating the sewers of Roman Britain. But it is also the painstaking task of interpretation, so that we come to understand what these things mean for the human story. And it is the conservation of the world’s cultural heritage against looting and careless harm.

　　考古学部分是对过去财富的发现，部分是科学分析的严谨工作，部分是创造性想像的练习。同时也是在阳光下辛苦地在中东挖掘，在雪中的阿拉斯加和因纽特人一起工作，研究罗马大不列颠的下水道。但是它也是辛苦解释工作，以使我们理解在人类历史中这些东西代表了什么。它保持了世界文化遗产，使之免受掠夺和疏忽的伤害。

　　Archaeology, then, is both a physical activity out in the field, and an intellectual pursuit in the study or laboratory. That is part of its great attraction. The rich mixture of danger and detective work has also made it the perfect vehicle for fiction writers and film-makers, from Agatha Christie with Murder in Mesopotamia to Stephen Spielberg with Indiana Jones. However far from reality such portrayals are, they capture the essential truth that archaeology is an exciting quest — the quest for knowledge about ourselves and our past.

　　考古学既是一个在田野的体力活动，也是在书房或实验室的智力追求。这正是它的巨大吸引力的一部分。这种充满了危险和侦探性质的工作的混合体是小说作家和电影导演的完美载体，从阿加莎?克里斯蒂的《东方快车谋杀案》到斯蒂芬?斯皮尔伯格的《夺宝奇兵》。虽然这些描述和现实差距甚远，但是它们抓住了最本质的事实：考古学是一个令人激动的探询，一个对关于我们自身和过去知识的探询。

　　But how does archaeology relate to disciplines such as anthropology and history, that are also concerned with the human story? Is archaeology itself a science? And what are the responsibilities of the archaeologist in today’s world?

　　但是考古学是怎样和诸如人类学和历史学这样的学科相联系呢，这些学科也同样研究人类历史?考古学本身是一门科学吗?考古学家在今天低界中的责任是什么?

　　Anthropology, at its broadest, is the study of humanity — our physical characteristics as animals and our unique non-biological characteristics that we call culture. Culture in this sense includes what the anthropologist, Edward Tylor, summarised in 1871 as ‘knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society’. Anthropologists also use the term ‘culture’ in a more restricted sense when they refer to the ‘culture’ of a particular society, meaning the non-biological characteristics unique to that society, which distinguish it from other societies. Anthropology is thus a broad discipline — so broad that it is generally broken down into three smaller disciplines: physical anthropology, cultural anthropology and archaeology.

　　最广义的人类学是研究人类的科学，包括我们作为动物的身体特征以及被我们称为文化的人类特有的非生物特征。在这种意义上的文化包括了人类学家爱德华?泰勒在1871年总结的“作为社会成员的个体所习得的包括知识、信仰、艺术，道德、习俗以及其他一切能力和习惯。”而当人类学家谈到某个特定社会的文化时，这个文化就是狭义的概念，指这个社会的独特的非生物特征，这一特征使该社会区别于其他社会。人类学是一个非常宽泛的学科，通常分为三个更小的学科：体质人类学、文化人类学和考古学。

　　Physical anthropology, or biological anthropology as it is also called, concerns the study of human biological or physical characteristics and how they evolved. Cultural anthropology — or social anthropology — analyses human culture and society. Two of its branches are ethnography (the study at first hand of individual living cultures) and ethnology (which sets out to compare cultures using ethnographic evidence to derive general principles about human society).

　　体质人类学或者生物人类学，正如其名字一样，关注于人类生物或体质特征的研究以及这些特征是怎样发展的。文化人类学或者社会人类学分析人类文化和社会。它的两个分支是人种志(对单个活文化的手研究)和民族学(从人种出发，比较各不同文化，得出关于人类社会的通用法则)。

　　Archaeology is the ‘past tense of cultural anthropology’. Whereas cultural anthropologists will often base their conclusions on the experience of living within contemporary communities, archaeologists study past societies primarily through their material remains — the buildings, tools, and other artefacts that constitute what is known as the material culture left over from former societies.

　　考古学是“文化人类学的过去时”。文化人类学家经常把他们的结论建立在目前社区的生活经历上，然而考古学家主要通过残存的物质研究过去社会——建筑、工具和其他人工制品，这些构成了过去社会留下來的物质文化。

　　Nevertheless, one of the most important tasks for the archaeologist today is to know how to interpret material culture in human terms. How were those pots used? Why are some dwellings round and others square? Here the methods of archaeology and ethnography overlap. Archaeologists in recent decades have developed ‘ethnoarchaeology’, where, like ethnographers, they live among contemporary communities, but with the specific purpose of learning how such societies use material culture — how they make their tools and weapons, why they build their settlements where they do, and so on. Moreover, archaeology has an active role to play in the field of conservation. Heritage studies constitutes a developing field, where it is realised that the world’s cultural heritage is a diminishing resource which holds different meanings for different people.

　　然而，今天的考古学家最重要的任务之一就是知道如何解读从前的物质文化。那些罐子是怎么用的?为什么有些住所是圆形的，而有些是方形的?在这里，考古学和人种学的方法重合了。几十年来，考古学家延伸出了种族文化考古学，和人种学者一样，他们住在当代的社区中，但是他们带着特定的目的，就是要了解社会是如何使用物质文化的，比如人们是怎样制造工具和武器，人们为什么要在现在的地方建立住所，等等。而且，考古学在保护遗址方面起了积极的作用。传统研究构成了一个不断发展的领域，在这个领域里，人们认识到世界的文化遗产是一个正在减少的资源，这一资源对不同的人们有着不同的意义。

　　If, then, archaeology deals with the past, in what way does it differ from history? In the broadest sense, just as archaeology is an aspect of anthropology, so too is it a part of history — where we mean the whole history of humankind from its beginnings over three million years ago. Indeed, for more than ninety-nine per cent of that huge span of time, archaeology — the study of past material culture — is the only significant source of information. Conventional historical sources begin only with the introduction of written records around 3,000 BC in western Asia, and much later in most other parts of the world.

　　如果考古学只研究过去，那么它有什么是区别于历史学的呢?就最广义的意义而言，考古学是人类学的一个方面，同时也是历史学的一部分，在这里的历史是指3百万年前人类产生以来的所有人类历史。实际上，在那段漫长的岁月里，超过99%的时间，考古学这一研究过去的物质文化的学科是惟一有意义的信息资源。传统的历史始于公元前3000左右西亚的文字记载，而世界的其他大多数地区的历史要比这晚很多。

　　A commonly drawn distinction is between pre-history, i.e. the period before written records — and history in the narrow sense, meaning the study of the past using written evidence. To archaeology, which studies all cultures and periods, whether with or without writing, the distinction between history and pre-history is a convenient dividing line that recognises the importance of the written word, but in no way lessens the importance of the useful information contained in oral histories.

　　人们一般是这样把人类的历史一分为二的：史前(即文字记录出现以前的时期)和狭义的历史即有文字见证的这段历史。对于研究所有文化和所有时期的考古学而言，不管有没有文字，历史和史前的区别只是承认文字重要性的传统分界线，绝不会减少包含在口述史中有用信息的重要性。

　　Since the aim of archaeology is the understanding of humankind, it is a humanistic study, and since it deals with the human past, it is a historical discipline. But it differs from the study of written history in a fundamental way. The material the archaeologist finds does not tell us directly what to think. Historical records make statements, offer opinions and pass judgements. The objects the archaeologists discover, on the other hand, tell us nothing directly in themselves. In this respect, the practice of the archaeologist is rather like that of the scientist, who collects data, conducts experiments, formulates a hypothesis, tests the hypothesis against more data, and then, in conclusion, devises a model that seems best to summarise the pattern observed in the data. The archaeologist has to develop a picture of the past, just as the scientist has to develop a coherent view of the natural world.

　　由于考古学的目的是理解人类，所以它是一个人文主义的学科。而且，由于考古学研究的是人类的过去，所以它是一个有关历史的学科，但是它在根本上区别于文字历史的研究。考古学家发现的物质不会直接告诉我们去思考什么。历史记载是一种声明，意见及评判。在另一方面，考古学家发现的物体本身并未直接吿诉我们什么。从这个角度来说，考古学家的实践更像科学家的实践。科学家收集数据，进行实验，提出假设，用更多的数据验证假设，然后得出结论，设计模型，而这一模型看起来最适合总结在数据中观察到的模式。而考古学家需要描画出关于过去的一幅图画，正如科学家需要建立一个关于自然世界的连贯的思维框架。

评分标准，请：雅思评分标准

　　这个暑期，来新航道上海雅思培训班 ，我们给考生的保障

　　签订协议，承诺不过重修，只有的雅思培训学校，才敢做出如此承诺!

　　自信，源于上海新航道完善的雅思培训体系

　　13年来，我们专心做好一件事

那就是如何让学员顺利通过雅思考试