新概念英语4-课文.docxVIP

NEW?CONCEPT?ENGLISH?(IV)? (new?version)? ?? 2? Lesson?1?Finding?Fossil?man? We?can?read?of?things?that?happened?5,000?years?ago?in?the?Near?East,?where?people?first?learned?to?write.?But?there?are?some?parts?of?the?world?where?even?now?people?cannot?write.?The?only?way?that?they?can?preserve?their?history?is?torecount?it?as?sagas--legends?handed?down?from?one? generation?of?story-tellersto?another.?These?legends?are?useful?because?they?can?tell?us?something?aboutmigrations?of?people?who?lived?long?ago,?but?none?could?write?down?what?they?did.? Anthropologists?wondered?where?the?remote?ancestors?of?the?Polynesianpeoples?now?living?in?the?Pacific?Islands?came?from.?The?sagas?of?these?peopleexplain?that?some?of?them?came?from?Indonesia?about?2,000?years?ago.But?the?first?people?who?were?like?ourselves?lived?so?long?ago?that?even?theirsagas,?if?they?had?any,?are?forgotten.?So?archaeologists?have?neither?history?nor?legends?to?help?them?to?find?out?where?the?first?modern?men?came?from.Fortunately,?however,?ancient?men?made?tools?of?stone,?especially?flint,?becausethis?is?easier?to?shape?than?other?kinds.?They?may?also?have?used?woodand?skins,?but?these?have?rotted?away.?Stone?does?not?decay,?and?so?the?tools?oflong?ago?have?remained?when?even?the?bones?of?the?men?who?made?them?have?disappeared?without?trace.?? 3? Lesson?2?Spare?that?spider? Why,?you?may?wonder,?should?spiders?be?our?friends???Because?they?destroy?somany?insects,?and?insects?include?some?of?the?greatest?enemies?of?the?humanrace.?Insects?would?make?it?impossible?for?us?to?live?in?the?world;?they?woulddevour?all?our?crops?and?kill?our?flocks?and?herds,?if?it?were?not?for?the?protectionwe?get?from?insect-eating?animals.?We?owe?a?lot?to?the?birds?and?beasts?who?eat?insects?but?all?of?them?put?together?kill?only?a?fraction?of?the?number?destroyed?by?spiders.?Moreover,?unlike?some?of?the?other?insect?eaters,?spiders?never?dothe?least?harm?to?us?or?our?belongings.Spiders?are?not?insects,?as?many?people?think,?no