剑桥雅思10Test3阅读Passage3原文翻译 Beyond the blue horizon

剑桥雅思10Test3阅读Passage3原文翻译 Beyond the blue horizon

剑桥雅思10 Test3 Passage3阅读原文翻译

第1段

An important archaeological discovery on the island of Efate in the Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu has revealed traces of an ancient seafaring people, the distant ancestors of today’s Polynesians. The site came to light only by chance. An agricultural worker, digging in the grounds of a derelict plantation, scraped open a grave—the first of dozens in a burial ground some 3,000 years old. It is the oldest cemetery ever found in the Pacific islands, and it harbors the remains of an ancient people archaeologists call the Lapita.

在太平洋瓦努阿图群岛埃法特岛上的一项重要考古发现，揭示了古代航海者的踪迹。他们是当今波利尼西亚人的远古祖先。该遗址是偶然发现的。一名农业工人在一个废弃的种植园中挖地，刨开了一个坟墓。这是一处拥有3000多年历史的墓园里数十个坟墓中出土的第一个。它是有史以来在太平洋岛屿上发现的最古老的墓地，埋葬着考古学家称为Lapita的远古人类遗骸。

第2段

They were daring blue-water adventurers who used basic canoes to rove across the ocean. But they were not just explorers. They were also pioneers who carried with them everything they would need to build new lives—their livestock, taro seedlings and stone tools. Within the span of several centuries, the Lapita stretched the boundaries of their world from the jungle-clad volcanoes of Papua New Guinea to the loneliest coral outliers of Tonga.

他们是勇敢的海洋冒险家，使用原始的独木舟在海洋上漂泊。但他们不仅仅是探索者，还是带着开启新生活所需一切物品（牲畜，芋头幼苗和石器）的开拓者。在几个世纪的时间里，Lapita将他们世界的边界从巴布亚新几内亚森林遍布的Papua火山，扩展到汤加半岛最偏远的珊瑚礁。

第3段

The Lapita left precious few dues about themselves, but Efate expands the volume of data available to researchers dramatically. The remains of 62 individuals have been uncovered so far, and archaeologists were also thrilled to find six complete Lapita pots. Other items included a Lapita burial urn with modeled birds arranged on the rim as though peering down at the human remains sealed inside. ‘It’s an important discovery’, says Matthew Spriggs, professor of archaeology at the Australian National University and head of the international team digging up the site, for it conclusively identifies the remains as Lapita.’

Lapita只留下有关自己的少许珍贵印记，但Efate极大地扩展了研究人员可获得的数据量。到目前为止，已经发现了62个人的遗体。而且考古学家还惊喜的找到了6个完整的Lapita罐子。其他物品还包括一个Lapita骨灰盒。其边缘装饰着鸟类模型，仿佛正在低头凝视着里面的人类遗体。澳大利亚国立大学考古学教授，挖掘该遗址的国际团队负责人马修·斯普里格斯（Matthew Spriggs）说：“这是一个重要发现。因为它彻底确认这些遗骸是Lapita人的”。

第4段

DNA teased from these human remains may help answer one of the most puzzling questions in Pacific anthropology: did all Pacific islanders spring from one source or many? Was there only one outward migration from a single point in Asia, or several from different points? ‘This represents the best opportunity we’ve had yet,’ says Spriggs, ‘to find out who the Lapita actually were, where they came from, and who their closest descendants are today.’

从这些人类遗骸中提取的DNA可能有助于回答太平洋人类学中最令人困扰的问题之一：所有的太平洋岛民究竟是来自同一个地方，还是许多地方？是只有一次从亚洲某个地点向外的迁徙呢，还是有从不同地点出发的许多次？斯普利格斯说，“这是我们迄今为止得到的最好机会，可以找出Lapita人究竟是谁，他们来自哪里，以及现在与他们血缘关系最近的后代又是谁”。

第5段

There is one stubborn question for which archaeology has yet to provide any answers: how did the Lapita accomplish the ancient equivalent of a moon landing, many times over? No-one has found one of their canoes or any rigging, which could reveal how the canoes were sailed. Nor do the oral histories and traditions of later Polynesians offer any insights, for they turn into myths long before they reach as far back in time as the Lapita.

有这样一个问题一直等待着考古学的回答：Lapita人究竟是如何在他们那个年代多次完成宛如登月一样的壮举。没有人找到过任何一艘他们使用的独木舟或绳索。这些东西可以揭示独木舟是如何航行的。后来的波利尼西亚人的口述历史和传统也没有提供任何线索，因为他们早在追溯到Lapita之前就已经成为神话传说。

第6段

‘All we can say for certain is that the Lapita had canoes that were capable of ocean voyages, and they had the ability to sail them,’ says Geoff Irwin, a professor of archaeology at the University of Auckland. Those sailing skills, he says, were developed and passed down over thousands of years by earlier mariners who worked their way through the archipelagoes of the western Pacific, making short crossings to nearby islands. The real adventure didn’t begin, however, until their Lapita descendants sailed out of sight of land, with empty horizons on every side. This must have been as difficult for them as landing on the moon is for us today. Certainly it distinguished them from their ancestors, but what gave them the courage to launch out on such risky voyages?

奥克兰大学考古学教授杰夫·欧文说：“我们可以肯定地说，Lapita拥有能够进行远洋航行的独木舟，而且他们具有航海能力。” 他说，这些航海技巧是由早期航海者开发并在几千年里传承下来的。这些航海者经过西太平洋群岛，抄近路穿过附近的岛屿。然而，直到他们的Lapita后裔驶出可见陆地的范围，四周空无一物，真正的冒险才开始。对于他们来说，这一定很困难，就像对今天的我们来说登陆月球一样。当然，这也将他们与他们的祖先区分开来。但究竟是什么给了他们勇气开启如此危险的航程呢？

第7段

The Lapita’s thrust into the Pacific was eastward, against the prevailing trade winds, Irwin notes. Those nagging headwinds, he argues, may have been the key to their success. ‘They could sail out for days into the unknown and assess the area, secure in the knowledge that if they didn’t find anything, they could turn about and catch a swift ride back on the trade winds. This is what would have made the whole thing work.’ Once out there, skilled seafarers would have detected abundant leads to follow to land: seabirds, coconuts and twigs carried out to sea by the tides, and the afternoon pile-up of clouds on the horizon which often indicates an island in the distance.

欧文注意到，Lapita对太平洋的探索是向东进行的，与盛行的季风方向想法。

他认为，那些持续不断的逆风可能是其成功的关键。“他们可以在未知的地方航行数日，并评估该区域，因为他们知道如果找不到任何东西，他们可以调头，利用信风快速返回。这就是整个事情得以成功的原因。” 一旦身处外海，熟练的海员就会发现有大量的线索可供追踪陆地：海鸟，被潮汐带到了大海的叶子和嫩枝，下午在地平线上堆积的云层，这通常表示远处存在岛屿。

第8段

For returning explorers successful or not, the geography of their own archipelagoes would have provided a safety net. Without this to go by, overshooting their home pores, getting lost and sailing off into eternity would have been all too easy. Vanuatu, for example, stretches more than 500 miles in a northwest-southeast trend, its scores of intervisible islands forming a backstop for mariners riding the trade winds home.

无论成功与否，对于返回的探索者来说，他们自身群岛的地理条件都提供了一张安全网。如果没有它的话，非常容易出现超过家乡港湾的范围，迷失航向并终生在外漂泊的情况。例如，瓦努阿图在西北偏南方向上延伸了500多英里，其数十个可互通的岛屿构成了乘风回返的水手的后盾。

第9段

All this presupposes one essential detail, says Atholl Anderson, professor of prehistory at the Australian National University: the Lapita had mastered the advanced art of sailing against the wind. ‘And there’s no proof they could do any such thing,’ Anderson says. ‘There has been this assumption they did, and people have built canoes to re-create those early voyages based on that assumption. But nobody has any idea what their canoes looked like or how they were rigged.’

澳大利亚国立大学史前学教授阿索尔·安德森（Atholl Anderson）说，所有这些都以一个关键细节为前提：Lapita掌握了逆风航行的先进技术。“没有证据表明他们可以做到这样的事情，”一直存在这样的假设，认为他们确实有此能力。还有人以此假设为基础制造独木舟来重现那些早期的航行。但没有人人道他们的独木舟长什么样子，以及如何操作“。

第10段

Rather than give all the credit to human skill, Anderson invokes the winds of chance. El Nino, the same climate disruption that affects the Pacific today, may have helped scatter the Lapita, Anderson suggests. He points out that climate data obtained from slow-growing corals around the Pacific indicate a series of unusually frequent El Ninos around the time of the Lapita expansion. By reversing the regular east-to-west flow of the trade winds for weeks at a time, these ‘super El Ninos’ might have taken the Lapita on long unplanned voyages.

与其将这些壮举都归功于人类的技能，安德森提出风的偶然因素。厄尔尼诺这种在今天仍然影响太平洋地区的气候扰动也许帮助了Lapita人的扩散。他指出，从缓慢生长的珊瑚中获得的有关太平洋气候的数据表明，在Lapita人扩张的时候，正好有一系列不同寻常的、频繁的厄尔尼诺现象。通过一次颠倒数周常规的从东向西方向的信风。这些超级厄尔尼诺想象可能将Lapita人带上事先并未计划的长期旅行。

第11段

However they did it, the Lapita spread themselves a third of the way across the Pacific, then called it quits for reasons known only to them. Ahead lay the vast emptiness of the central Pacific and perhaps they were too thinly stretched to venture farther. They probably never numbered more than a few thousand in total, and in their rapid migration eastward they encountered hundreds of islands – more than 300 in Fiji alone.

无论他们是怎么做到的，Lapita人都将自己的生活范围扩展到横跨太平洋的三分之一，然后又出于只有他们自己知道的原因而停了下来。在他们面前是巨大的、空旷的中太平洋。或许他们延伸的过于狭长，无力进一步冒险。他们的总人口可能一直都没有超过几千人。在他们迅速向东迁徙的过程中，他们遇到了上百座岛屿。单单在斐济一地就超过300个。

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