TPO51托福阅读passage1：Origins of the Megaliths原文文本+真题答案
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属蛇多大了Origins of the Megaliths
Since the days of the earliest antiquarians, scholars have been puzzled by the many Neolithic (~4000 B.C.~2200 B.C.) communal tombs known as megaliths along
Europe's Atlantic aboard. Although considerable variations are found in the architectural form of the impressive monuments, there is a general overriding similarity in design and, particularly, in the u of massive stones.
The construction of such large and architecturally complex tombs by European barbarians struck early prehistorians as unlikely. The Bronze Age afaring civilizations that lived in the region of the Aegean Sea (~ 3000 B.C.~ 1000 B.C.), among whom collective burial and a diversity of stone-built tombs were known, emed a probable source of inspiration. It was suggested that Aegean people had visited Iberia in southwestern Europe in arch of metal
ores and had introduced the idea of collective burial in massive tombs, which then spread northward to Brittany, Britain, North Germany, and Scandinavia.
Radiocarbon dates for a fortified ttlement of megalith builders at Los Millares in Spain appeared to confirm this picture, though dates for megaliths in Brittany emed too early. When calibrated, however, it became clear that radiocarbon dates were universally too early to support a Bronze Age Aegean origin. It is now clear that the megaliths are a western and northern European invention, not an introduced idea. Even so, they are still a subject of speculation and inquiry. What induced their builders to invest massive efforts in erecting such monumental tombs? How was the necessary labor force asmbled? What underlies their striking similarities?
One answer to the last question was propod by Professor Grahame Clark, one of
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Britain's greatest prehistorians. Investigating the megaliths of southern Sweden, he noted that one group was concentrated in coastal locations from which deep-a fish such as cod, haddock, and ling could have been caught in winter. Historically, much of the Atlantic
was linked by the travels of people who fished, and this could well have provided a mechanism by which the megalith idea and fashions in the style of tomb architecture spread between coastal Iberia, Brittany, Ireland, western England and Scotland, and Scandinavia. The high concentrations of megaliths on coasts and the surprising number of megaliths found on small islands may support a connection with fishing.
Professor Colin Renfrew of the University of Cambridge, England, however, views the similarities as similar respons to similar needs. At the structural level, the passage that forms a major element of many graves could have been devid independently in different areas to meet the need for repeated access to the interior of the communal tombs. Other structural remblances could be due to similarities in the raw materials available. In answer to the question of why the idea of building monumental tombs should ari independently in a number of areas, he cites the similarities in their backgrounds.
Most megaliths occur in areas inhabited in the postglacial period by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers (~20000 B.C. ~ 18000 B.C. ). Their adoption of agriculture through contact with
Neolithic farmers, Renfrew argues, led to a population explosion in the region and conquent competition for farmland between neighboring groups. In
the face of potential conflict, the groups may have found it desirable to define their territories and emphasize their boundaries. The construction of megaliths could have arin in respon to this need.
Renfrew has studied two circumscribed areas, the Scottish islands of Arran and Rousay, to examine this hypothesis more cloly. He found that a division of the arable land into territories, each containing one megalith, results in units that correspond in size to the individual farming communities of recent times in the same area. 【】Each unit supported between 10 and 50 people. 【】The labor needed to put up a megalith would probably be beyond the capabilities of a community this size. 【 】 But Renfrew argues that the cooperation of other communities could be cured by some form of recognized social incentive perhaps a period of feasting at which communal building was one of veral activities. 【 】
Most megaliths contain collective burials. Different tombs ud different arrangements, but there ems to have been an underlying theme: people placed in the tombs were reprentative of their society, but their identity as individuals was not important. The tombs belonged to the ancestors, through whom the living society laid claim to their land. This interpretation reinforces Renfrew’s view of the megaliths as territorial markers.
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题目
1.The word "collective"in the passage is clost in meaning to
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A.above ground
B.public
C.elaborate
D.group
2.According to paragraph 2, early prehistorians thought the Aegean people of the Bronze
Age might have influenced megalith building along the Atlantic aboard becau they
A.had established commercial routes along the Atlantic aboard
B.had been in Iberia, where they introduced the idea of burial in very large tombs
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