(1). But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten.
但是具有和我们现代人想象的最早的古代人,生活在很多年以前,即使他们有什么民间传说的话,也早已被人们遗忘了。
(2). So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first ’modern men’ came from.
因此考古学家既无史实可据,又无民间传说可依,无法搞清最早的"现代人"来自何处。
(3). Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds.
然而,幸亏古代人制造了石头工具,尤其是燧石,因燧石较其它几种东西更易制作。
(4). They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away.
古代人可能使用过树木和兽皮,但这些东西早已腐烂了。
(5). Why are legends handed down by storytellers useful?
为什么讲故事者把传说传下来是非常有用的。
(6). We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write.
我们对5,000年前近东所发生的事情还能略知一二,因为那里的人首先懂得用文字记载。
(7). But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write.
但是在世界上一些地方,甚至现在人们还不会书写。
(8). 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.
他们保存自己历史的唯一方法就是采用讲故事的办法:由讲故事者把类似英雄故事的民间传说一代代传下去。
(9). 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.
这些传说十分有用,因为我们能从中知道一些在很多年以前的人们迁移的情况。可是没有一个人能把他们所做的事情用文字记载下来。
(10). Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from.
人类学家不知道现在住在太平洋群岛上的波利尼亚人的远祖来自何方。
(11). The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.
民间传说中提到这些人,说其中有些人约在2,000年前来自印度尼西亚。
(12). But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten.
但是具有和我们现代人想象的最早的古代人,生活在很多年以前,即使他们有什么民间传说的话,也早已被人们遗忘了。
(13). So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first ’modern men’ came from.
因此考古学家既无史实可据,又无民间传说可依,无法搞清最早的"现代人"来自何处。
(14). Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds.
然而,幸亏古代人制造了石头工具,尤其是燧石,因燧石较其它几种东西更易制作。
(15). They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away.
古代人可能使用过树木和兽皮,但这些东西早已腐烂了。