托福阅读真题（含答案）20140621Reading.docxVIP

PAGE 18 CABAC, ADDBD, BAB, 156 ABBCC, DBDCC, ABB, 345 CCDAC, BABCD, ABD, 245 Climate Change and the Natufian People The so-called Natufian culture inhabited what is now the Middle East between approximately 14,000 and 11,500 years ago. This period is commonly split into two subperiods, Early Natufian (14,000 to 13,000 years ago) and Late Natufian (13,000 to 11,500). The Natufians were hunter-gatherers who relied primarily on gazelle, although they also cultivated some cereal grains. During the early period at least, they lived year-round in villages in built stone houses. Like all human beings, their way of life depended on the climate. Around 13,000 years ago, their climate began to change, becoming colder and drier, a period known as the Younger Dryas. We know that times were hard in the increasingly arid landscapes of the Younger Dryas, but quite how hard remains unclear. The droughts certainly caused many ponds and rivers to disappear completely and the larger lakes to shrink in size. The people who lived in the south, in today’s deserts of the Negev and the Sinai, were most likely hit the hardest. They returned to a completely transient hunter-gatherer way of life, moving from place to place. Survival required improved hunting weapons: game (animals hunted for food) had become scarce, and consequently, success had become essential when a kill was possible. And so we see the invention of the Harif point, a new kind of arrowhead. Further north, the impact of the Younger Dryas may have been less severe. Yet survival still required more than just a return to the ancient mobile hunter-gatherer lifestyle, especially as there were now many more people needing food than had been the case during earlier periods, when the Natufians lived in permanent dwellings. One response was to hunt a much wider range of animals than before, and hence we find in Late Natufian settlements the bones of many small-game species as well as larger, ever-present gazelle. Another response