托福tpo67阅读第2篇Human Activity and the Archaeological Record题目解析-小站备考

Archaeologists distinguish the “cultural” formation processes of the archaeological record (those involving some kind of human activity) from the “natural” formation processes (those involving nonhuman activity, such as river action disturbing archaeological material). There are two kinds of cultural formation processes: those that reflect the original human behavior and activity before a find or site became buried, and those (such as looting) that came after burial. Of course, most major archaeological sites are formed as the result of a complex sequence of use, burial, and reuse so that a simple twofold division of cultural formation processes may not be so simple to apply in practice, but the distinction is still useful.

Original human behavior is often reflected archaeologically in at least four major activities. In the case of a tool, for example, there may be (1) acquisition of the raw material, (2) manufacture, (3) use, and (4) disposal or discard when the tool is worn out or broken. (The tool may of course be reworked and recycled, thus repeating stages 2 and 3.) Similarly, a food crop such as wheat will be acquired (harvested), manufactured (processed), used (eaten), and discarded (digested and the waste products excreted), although here one might add a common intermediate stage of storage before use. From the archaeologist's point of view, the critical factor is that remains can enter the archaeological record at any one of these stages. A tool may be lost or thrown out for being of inferior quality during manufacture, or a crop may be accidentally burnt and thus preserved during processing. In order to reconstruct the original activity accurately it is therefore crucial to try to understand which of the stages one is looking at. It may be quite easy to identify the first stage for stone tools, for instance, because stone quarries can often be recognized by deep holes in the ground with piles of associated waste flakes that survive well. But it is much more difficult to know beyond reasonable doubt where a sample of charred plant remains comes from, whether from an area where harvested wheat was taken for threshing or from the area where the grain was eaten. This may also make it difficult to reconstruct the true plant diet, since certain activities may favor the preservation of certain species of plant.

Deliberate burial of valuables or the dead is another human behavior that has left its mark on the archaeological record. In times of conflict or war, people often deposit prized possessions in the ground, intending to reclaim them at a later date; but sometimes, for one reason or another, they fail to do so. These hoards are a prime source of evidence for certain periods, such as the European Bronze Age, for which hoards of metal goods are common, or later Roman Britain, which has yielded buried treasures of silver and other precious metals. The archaeologist, however, may not find it easy to distinguish between hoards originally intended to be reclaimed and valuables buried—perhaps as offerings to supernatural powers—with no reclamation intended.

In addition to burial hoards, a major source of archaeological evidence comes from burial of the dead, whether in simple graves, elaborate burial mounds, or giant pyramids, usually with grave goods such as ceramic vessels or weapons, and sometimes with painted tomb-chamber walls, as in ancient Mexico or Egypt. The Egyptians indeed went so far as to mummify their dead—to preserve them, they hoped, for eternity—as did the Incas of Peru, whose kings were kept in the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco and brought outside for special ceremonies.

Human destruction of the archaeological record might be caused by burials of the kind just described being dug into earlier deposits. But people in the past deliberately or accidentally obliterated traces of their predecessors in innumerable other ways. Rulers often destroyed monuments or erased inscriptions belonging to previous chiefs or monarchs. On the other hand, some human destruction meant to obliterate has inadvertently preserved material for the archaeologist to find. Burning, for example, may not always destroy. Clay daubing and adobe usually decay, but if a structure has been burned, the mud is baked to the consistency of a brick.

托福official67阅读第2篇Human Activity and the Archaeological Record题目解析

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