剑桥雅思19Test1Part4听力原文与答案 Ceide Fields
剑桥雅思19听力第一套题目第四部分的主题为Ceide Fields的考古发现。录音首先介绍了该新石器遗址戏剧性的发现过程，以及其保存完好的原因，然后转向该遗址对我们了解史前文明的意义，最后以探讨该地区农业衰落的原因收尾。整篇文章语速稍微有些快，但还可以接受。下面是这段录音对应的原文：
剑桥雅思19 Test1 Part4雅思听力原文
For my presentation today, I’m going to talk about the Ceide Fields in the northwest of Ireland, one of the largest Neolithic sites in the world. I recently visited this site and observedthe work that is currently being done by a team of archaeologists there.
The site was first discovered in the 1930s by a local teacher, Patrick Caulfield. He noticed that when local people were digging in the bog, they were constantly hitting against what seemed to be rows of stones. He realised that these must be walls (Q31) and that they must be thousands of years old for them to predate the bog which subsequently grew over them.
He wrote to the National Museum in Dublin to ask them to investigate, but no one took him seriously.It wasn’t until 40 years laler, when Patrick Caulfield’s son (Q32) Seamus, who had become an archaeologist by then, began to explore further. He inserted iron probes into the bog to map the formation of the stones, a traditional method which local people had always used for finding fuel (Q33) buried in the bog for thousands of years. Carbon dating later proved that the site was over 5,000 years old and was the largest Neolithic site in Ireland.
Thanks to the bog which covers the area, the remains of the settlement at Ceide Fields, which is over 5,000 years old, are extremely well-preserved. A bog is 90 percent water; its soil is so saurated that when the grasses and heathers that grow on its surface die, they don’t fully decay but accumulate in layers. Objects remain so well preserved in these conditions because of the acidity of the peat and the deficiency of oxygen (Q34). At least 175 days of rain a year are required for this to happen; this part of lreland gets an average of 225 days.
The Neolithic farmers at Ceide would have enjoyed several centuries of relative peace and stability. Neolithic farmers generally lived in larger communities than their predecessors, with a number of houses built around a community building. As they lived in permanent settlements, Neolithic farmers were able to build bigger houses. These weren’t round as people often assume, but rectangular (Q35) with a smallhole in the roof that allowed smoke toescape. This article is from laokaoya website. This is one of many innovations and indicates that the Neolithic farmers were the first people to cook indoors. Another new technology that Neolithic settlers brought to Ireland was pottery. Fragments of Neolithic pots have been found in Ceide and elsewhere in Ireland. The pots were used for many things; as well as for storing food, pots were filled with a small amount of fat and when this was set alight, they served as lamps (Q36).
It’s thought that the Ceide Fields were mainly used as paddocks for animals to graze in. Evidence from the Ceide Fields suggests that each plot of land was of a suitable size to sustain an extended family (Q37). They may have used a system of rotational grazing in order to prevent over-grazing and to allow for plant recovery and regrowth. This must have been a year-round activity as no structures have been found which would have been used to shelter animals in the winter (Q38).
However, archaeologists believe that this way of life at Céide ceased abruptly. Why was this? Well, several factors may have contributed to the changing circumstances. The soil (Q39) would have become less productive and led to the abandonment of farming. The crop rotation system was partly responsible for this as it would have been very intensive and was notsustainable. But there were also climatic pressures too. The farmers at Ceide would have enjoyed a relatively dry period, but this began to change and the conditions became wetter as there was a lot more rain (Q40). It was these conditions that encouraged the bog to form over thearea which survives today.
So now I’d like to show you some …
剑桥雅思19 Test1 Part4雅思听力答案
31. walls
32. son
33. fuel
34. oxygen
35. rectangular
36. lamps
37. family
38. winter
39. soil
40. rain
