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OFFICIAL41 Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage. Where would the sentence best fit? Click on a square [■] to add the sentence to the passage.

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Trade And Early State Formation
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Bartering was a basic trade mechanism for many thousands of years; often sporadic and usually based on notions of reciprocity, it involved the mutual exchange of commodities or objects between individuals or groups. Redistribution of these goods through society lay in the hands of chiefs, religious leaders, or kin groups. Such redistribution was a basic element in chiefdoms. The change from redistribution to formal trade—often based on regulated commerce that perhaps involved fixed prices and even currency—was closely tied to growing political and social complexity and hence to the development of the state in the ancient world.

In the 1970s, a number of archaeologists gave trade a primary role in the rise of ancient states. British archaeologist Colin Renfrew attributed the dramatic flowering of the Minoan civilization on Crete and through the Aegean to intensified trading contacts and to the impact of olive and vine cultivation on local communities. As agricultural economies became more diversified and local food supplies could be purchased both locally and over longer distances, a far-reaching economic interdependence resulted. Eventually, this led to redistribution systems for luxuries and basic commodities, systems that were organized and controlled by Minoan rulers from their palaces. As time went on, the self-sufficiency of communities was replaced by mutual dependence. Interest in long­-distance trade brought about some cultural homogeneity from trade and gift exchange, and perhaps even led to piracy. Thus, intensified trade and interaction, and the flowering of specialist crafts, in a complex process of positive feedback, led to much more complex societies based on palaces, which were the economic hubs of a new Minoan civilization.

Renfrew’s model made some assumptions that are now discounted. For example, he argued that the introduction of domesticated vines and olives allowed a substantial expansion of land under cultivation and helped to power the emergence of complex society. Many archaeologists and paleobotanists now question this view, pointing out that the available evidence for cultivated vines and olives suggests that they were present only in the later Bronze Age. Trade, nevertheless, was probably one of many variables that led to the emergence of palace economies in Minoan Crete.

American archaeologist William Rathje developed a hypothesis that considered an explosion in long-distance exchange a fundamental cause of Mayan civilization in Mesoamerica. He suggested that the lowland Mayan environment was deficient in many vital resources, among them obsidian, salt, stone for grinding maize, and many luxury materials. All these could be obtained from the nearby highlands, from the Valley of Mexico, and from other regions, if the necessary trading networks came into being. Such connections, and the trading expeditions to maintain them, could not be organized by individual villages. The Maya lived in a relatively uniform environment, where every community suffered from the same resource deficiencies. Thus, argued Rathje, long­-distance trade networks were organized through local ceremonial centers and their leaders. In time, this organization became a state, and knowledge of its functioning was exportable, as were pottery, tropical bird feathers, specialized stone materials, and other local commodities.

Rathje’s hypothesis probably explains part of the complex process of Mayan state formation, but it suffers from the objection that suitable alternative raw materials can be found in the lowlands. It could be, too, that warfare became a competitive response to population growth and to the increasing scarcity of prime agricultural land, and that it played an important role in the emergence of the Mayan states.

Now that we know much more about ancient exchange and commerce, we know that, because no one aspect of trade was an overriding cause of cultural change or evolution in commercial practices, trade can never be looked on as a unifying factor or as a primary agent of ancient civilization. [■]Many ever-changing variables affected ancient trade, among them the demand for goods. [■]There were also the logistics of transportation, the extent of the trading network, and the social and political environment. [■]Intricate market networks channeled supplies along well-defined routes. [■]Authorities at both ends might regulate the profits fed back to the source, providing the incentive for further transactions. There may or may not have been a market organization. Extensive long-distance trade was a consequence rather than a cause of complex societies. 

13.Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage. Where would the sentence best fit? Click on a square [■] to add the sentence to the passage.

But demand for locally unobtainable resources was clearly only a part of the story..

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正确答案:B
题目解析:
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【题目翻译】请看四个方块[■],它指示了下一句话可以添加到段落中的位置。这句话最适合哪一句? A:但对当地无法获得的资源的需求显然只是故事的一部分。 【判定题型】:根据题目问法,题目要求将句子插入到文中最恰当的空格处,故判断本题为句子插入题。 【待插入句分析】对当地无法获得的资源的需求显然是故事的一部分,说明还有别的原因。 【原文分析】许多不断变化的变量,比如对商品的需求,影响着古代贸易。还有物流运输、贸易网络的广度,以及社会和政治环境。错综复杂的市场网络沿着既定的路线输送物资。买卖双方的领导人物可能会调节给供货商的利润,以此鼓励更多的交易。这中间可能有市场组织,也可能没有。广泛的远距离贸易是复杂社会的产物,而不是起因。 【选项分析】 A.还未提到难以获得的资源。故错误。 B.B选项的句子列举了运输物流,商业网的延伸,以及社会和政治环境。均为待插入句子中所提及的本地难以获得的资源。所以选择B选项。 C.已经在说别的话题了。故错误。 D.已经在说别的话题了。故错误

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