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 to recount it as sagas----legends handed down from one generation of storytellers to another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain 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 their sagas, 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, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without
trace.

ROBIN PLACE Finding fossil man

New words and expressions 生词短语
recount /ri'kaunt/ v.叙述/ ' rei'kaunt/ 再数一次
record / ' rek[d/ /ri' kC:d/ 第一个音节带重音，名前动后
叙述：recount : emotionless 重复
describe
depict： a little emotional

narrate： temporal&spacial 根据时间或空间顺序描述。
portray：描述
saga /'sa:g[/ n.英雄故事描述的内容mostly real 北欧海盗活动的故事
legend /'ledV[nd/ n.传说，传奇 unreal e.g robin hood
anthropologist/ 'AnWr['pCl[dVist/ n.人类学家
   anthrop：人
   philosophere :philo＋sopher|爱＋智慧＝哲学家
   philanthropist : 慈善家（对人有爱心的人）
   anthropology :人类学
   带-gy结尾的都是学科：biology 生物学geography 地理学 ecology 生态学
remote/ ri'm[ut/ n.遥远
ancestor / 'Ansest[/ n.祖先
    an- 在前面
    forefather,forebear ，predecessor祖先
rot/ rCt/ v.烂掉
    leave me rot.＝leave me along
    rot to death.
    soon ripe,soon rotten.
    decay 国家民族逐渐衰亡 decompose 逐渐衰竭 deteriorate关系逐渐恶化
trace /treis/ n.痕迹，踪迹

    trace the problem
    i follow your trace＝i follow where you go
polynesia 波利尼西亚
      poly-多
      polyandric: a wife with more than one husband
      polygeny : a husband with more than one wife
flint /flint/ n.燧石 flinting hearted
fossil / ' fCsl/ n. 化石cobble 鹅卵石
Notes on the text 课文注释
read of 读到
谈到：speak of ,talk of ,know of,hear of
near east：近东 mediterranean, south europe,north afric
far east
非限定性从句，表原因
oral(spoken) language is earlier than written language.
precede :什么在什么之前，不用比较，直接跟名词
counterpart: two things or two people have the same position
oral(spoken) language is earlier than written counterpart.

preserve: 保留，保存（腌制）
如果句中有only，那后面的表语结构就要用to do sth,而不是doing sth.
storyteller: 讲故事的人
fortuneteller, palmreader: 算命先生
migration ：移民１）migrant
v. migrate:迁移，迁徙
migratory bird:候鸟
none: no body
people＋s 民族
if they had any: 即便是有
his relatives,if he had any,never went to visit him when he was hospitalized.
find out千方百计，费尽周折＝explore
modern men :the men who were like ourselves
however－anywhere you want ,加逗号
but,yet－不加标点，only at the beginning of the sentence
therefore－自由
so－自由
tool:小工具
instrument:实验器械
equipment:设备
shape:成型；教育，改造
may also have:表推测
peel:果皮
leather:皮革
hide:兽皮 cowhide:牛皮
without (any) trace:无影无踪
２）immigrant