Finding Fossile Man

We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the word where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as sagas -- legends handed down from one generation of storytellers to another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.

But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first 'modern men' came from.

Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.
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所有跟帖： 

• 我好笨啊，不会用新版。很累啊，晚安，各位～～ -梅石莹玉- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/02/2010 postreply 21:58:42

• 哇～～又听到了你优雅的朗读～～～好听！ -千与.千寻- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/03/2010 postreply 05:30:11

• 如果我能像千妹妹都那么好，该多好啊 -梅石莹玉- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/03/2010 postreply 18:22:52

• 我有啥好的，看你的博客我好惭愧的... -千与.千寻- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/03/2010 postreply 18:42:04

• 我博客有好东东吗？看了一遍自己博客，也感到惭愧^_^ -梅石莹玉- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/04/2010 postreply 14:21:34

• 你可点击[旧版加新帖]，和以前的发帖方法一样的。 -紫君- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/03/2010 postreply 11:15:37

• 是啊，后来就是这么干的^&^ -梅石莹玉- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/03/2010 postreply 18:21:28

• 好久没听见梅mm的英国贵族腔调啦，问好 -lilac09- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/03/2010 postreply 09:40:07

• 问好～ 你真会夸，就是让俺硬着头皮都不敢认领。 -梅石莹玉- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/03/2010 postreply 18:20:27

• 悦耳动听，谢谢梅石莹玉的朗读。 -紫君- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/03/2010 postreply 11:13:13

• 谢谢鼓励～～ 晚安～～ -梅石莹玉- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/03/2010 postreply 18:23:44

• I bet Princess Diana couldn’t read better than this:) -carpediem- ♂ (0 bytes) () 11/04/2010 postreply 14:11:33

• 你这么大方，我下次一定恨恨地夸你也；） -梅石莹玉- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/04/2010 postreply 14:22:14