CALIFORNIA
California is the third largest state in the USA but has the largest population. It also has the distinction of being the most multicultural state in the USA, having attracted people from all over the world. The customs and languages of the immigrants live on in their new home. This diversity of culture is not surprising when you know the history of California.NATIVE AMERCANS
Exactly when the first people arrived in what we now know as California, no one really knows. However, it is likely that Native Americans were living in California at least fifteen thousand years ago. Scientists believe that these settlers crossed the Bering Strait in the Arctic to America by means of a land bridge which existed in prehistoric times. In the 16th century, after the arrival of the Europeans, the native people suffered greatly. Thousands were killed or forced into slavery. In addition, many died from the diseases brought by the Europeans. However, some survived these terrible times, and today there are more Native Americans living in California than in any other state.THE SPANISH
In the 18th century California was ruled by Spain. Spanish soldiers first arrived in South America in the early 16th century, when they fought against the native people and took their land. Two centuries later, the Spanish had settled in most parts of South America and along the northwest coast of what we now call the United States. Of the first Spanish to go to California, the majority were religious men, whose ministry was to teach the Catholic religion to the natives. In 1821, the people of Mexico gained their independence from Spain. California then became part of Mexico. In 1846 the United States declared war on Mexico, and after the war won by the USA, Mexico had to give California to the USA. However, there is still a strong Spanish influencein the state. That is why today over 40 of Californians speak Spanish as a first orsecond language.
RUSSIANS
In the early 1800s, Russian hunters, who had originally gone to Alaska, began settlingin California. Today there are about 25,000 Russian-Americans living in and aroundSan Francisco.
GOLD MINERS
In 1848, not long after the American-Mexican war, gold was discovered in California.
The dream of becoming rich quickly attracted people from all over the world. The nearest, and therefore the first to arrive, were South Americans and people from the United States. Then adventurers from Europe and Asia soon followed. In fact, few achieved their dream of becoming rich. Some died or returned home, but most remained in California to make a life for themselves despite great hardship. They settled in the new towns or on farms. By the time California elected to become the thirty-first federal state of the USA in 1850, it was already a multicultural society.
LATER A RRIVALS
Although Chinese immigrants began to arrive during the Gold Rush Period, it was the building of
the rail network from the west to the east coast that brought even larger numbers to California in the 1860s. Today, Chinese-Americans live in all parts of California, although a large percentage have chosen to stay in the \"Chinatowns\" of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Other immigrants such as Italians, mainly fishermen but also wine makers, arrived in California in the late 19th century. In 1911 immigrants from Denmark established a town of their own, which today still keeps up their Danish culture. By the 1920s the film industry was well established in Hollywood, California. The industry boom attracted Europeans including many Jewish people. Today California has the
second largest Jewish population in the United States.
Japanesefarmers began arriving in California at the beginning of the 20th century, and since the 1980s a lot more have settled there. People from Africa have been living in California since the 1800s, when they moved north from Mexico. However, even more arrived between 1942 and 1945 to work in the ship and aircraft industries.MOST RECENT ARRIV ALS
In more recent decades, California has become home to more people from Asia, including Koreans, Cambodians, Vietnamese and Laotians. Since its beginning in the 1970s, the computer industry has attracted Indians and Pakistanis to California. THE FUTURE
People from different parts of the world, attracted by the climate and the lifestyle, still immigrate to California. It is believed that before long the mix of nationalities will be so great that there will be no distinct major racial or cultural groups, but simply a mixture of many races and cultures.
GEORGE’ S DIARY 12TH— 14TH JUNE
Monday 12th, June
Arrived early this morning by bus.Went straight to hotel to drop my luggage, shower and shave.Then went exploring. First thing was a ride on a cable car. From top of the hill got a spectacular view of San Francisco Bay and the city. Built in 1873, the cable car system was invented by Andrew Hallidie, who wanted to find a better form of transport than horse-drawn trams. Apparently he'd been shocked when he saw a terrible accident in which a tram's brakes failed, the conductor could not control the situation and the tram slipped down the hill dragging the horses with it.
Had a late lunch at Fisherman's What. This is the district where Italian
fishermen first came to San Francisco in the late 19th century and began the fishing industry. Now it's a tourist area with lots of shops, sea food restaurants and bakeries. It's also the place to catch the ferry to Angel Island and other places in the Bay.
Did so much exploring at Fisherman's What. Am exhausted and don't feel
like doing anything else. Early bed tonight!Tuesday 13th, June
Teamed up with a couple from my hotel (Peter and Terri) and hired a car.
Spent all day driving around the city. There's a fascinating drive marked out for tourists. It has blue and white signs with seagulls on them to show the way to go. It's a 79km round-trip that takes in all the famous tourist spots. Stopped many times to admire the view of the city from different angles and take photographs. Now have a really good idea of what the city's like.
In evening, went to Chinatown with Peter and Terri. Chinese immigrants
settled in this area in the 1850s. The fronts of the buildings are decorated to look like old buildings in southern China. Saw some interesting temples here, a number
of markets and a great many restaurants. Also art galleries and a museum containing documents, photographs and all sorts of objects about the history of Chinese immigration, but it is closed in the evening. Will go back during the day. Had a delicious meal and then walked down the hill to our hotel.
Wednesday 14th, June
In morning, took ferry to Angel Island from the port in San Francisco Bay. On
the way had a good view of the Golden Gate Bridge. From 1882 to 1940 Angel Island was a famous immigration station where many Chinese people applied for right to live in USA. The cells in the station were very small, cold and damp; some did not even have light but the immigrants had nowhere else to go. Their miserable stay seemed to be punishment rather than justice and freedom to them. They wrote poems on the walls about their loneliness and mourned their former life in China. In 1940 the civil authorities reformed the system so that many more Chinese people were able to grasp the opportunity of settling in the USA. Made me very thoughtful and thankful for my life today.
选修 8 Unit 2 Cloning-Reading
CLONING: WHERE IS IT LEADING US?
Cloning has always been with us and is here to stay. It is a way of making
an exact copy of another animal or plant. It happens in plants when gardeners take
cuttings from growing plants to make new ones. It also happens in animals when twins identical in sex and appearance are produced from the same original egg. The fact is that these are both examples of natural clones.
Cloning has two major uses. Firstly, gardeners use it all the time to produce commercial quantities of plants. Secondly, it is valuable for research on new plant species and for medical research on animals. Cloning plants is straightforward while cloning animals is very complicated. It is a difficult task to undertake. Many attempts to clone mammals failed. But at last the determination and patience of the scientists paid off in 1996 with a breakthrough - the cloning of Dolly the sheep. The procedure works like this:
On the one hand, the whole scientific world followed the progress of the
first successful clone, Dolly the sheep. The fact that she seemed to develop normally was very encouraging. Then came the disturbing news that Dolly had become seriously ill. Cloning scientists were cast down to find that Dolly's illnesses were more appropriate to a much older animal. Altogether Dolly lived six and a half years, half the length of the life of the original sheep. Sadly the same arbitrary fate affected other species, such as cloned mice. The questions that concerned all scientists were: \"Would this be a major difficulty for all cloned animals? Would it happen forever? Could it be solved if corrections were made in their research procedure?\"
On the other hand, Dolly's appearance raised a storm of objections and had
a great impact on the media and public imagination. It became controversial. It suddenly opened everybody's eyes to the possibility of using cloning to cure serious illnesses and even to produce human beings.
Although at present human egg cells and embryos needed for cloning
research are difficult to obtain, newspapers wrote of evil leaders hoping to clone themselves to attain their ambitions. Religious leaders also raised moral questions. Governments became nervous and more conservative. Some began to reform their legal systems and forbade research into human cloning, but other countries like China and the UK, continued to accumulate evidence of the abundant medical aid that cloning could provide. However, scientists still wonder whether cloning will help or harm us and where it is leading us.
THE RETURN OF THE DINOSAURS?
The possibility of cloning fierce and extinct wild animals has always
excited film makers. And they are not the only ones! The popularity of films such as Jurassic Park, in which a scientist clones several kinds of extinct dinosaurs, proves how the idea struck a mixture of fear and excitement into people's hearts. But in fact we are a long way from being able to clone extinct animals. Scientists are still experimenting with cloning mammals. This is because the cloning of mammals is still a new science and its story only began seriously in the 1950s as this list shows:1950scloning
1996 first clone of a mammal: Dolly the sheep1970s research using the embryos of micea bison
1979 work on embryos of sheep and micecloned twin calves
1981 first experimental clones of micecats
1983 first experimental clones of cowsdog
?
From time to time people suggest that extinct animals like dinosaurs,
can possibly be brought back to life through cloning. Unfortunately, with what we know now, this is either impossible or unsuitable. There are many reasons.◎ The initial requirement is that you need perfect DNA (which gives information forhow cellsare to grow).
◎ All efforts of cloning an animal will be in vain if there is not enough diversity in the group to overcome illnesses. Diversity in a group means
having animals with their genes arranged in different ways. The advantage is that if there is a new illness some of these animals may die,
but others will survive and pass on the ability to resist that disease to the next generation. The great drawback to cloning a group of
animals is that they would all have the same arrangement of genes and so might die of the same illness. Then none of them would be left tocontinue the species.
◎ It would be unfair to clone any extinct animals if they were to live in a zoo. A suitable habitat would be needed for them to lead a natural life.
Based on what we know now, you cannot clone animals that have been
extinct longer than 10,000 years. Actually, dinosaurs disappeared65,000,000 years ago. So the chance of dinosaurs ever returning to the earth is merely a dream.
2002 first cloned2005 first cloned
of
frogs
2000 cow gave birth to
2001 China's first
选修 8 Unit 3 Inventors and inventions-Reading
THE PROBLEM OF THE SHRIKES
When I called up my mother in the countryside on the telephone she was
very upset. \"There are some snakes in our courtyard,\" she told me. \"Snakes come near the house now and then, and they seem to have made their home here, not far from the walnut tree. Can you get rid of them please?\" I felt very proud. Here was a chancefor .me to distinguish myself by inventing something merciful that would catch
snakes but not harm them. I knew my parents would not like me to hurt these living creatures!
The first thing I did was to see if there were any products that might help
me, but there only seemed to be powders designed to kill snakes. A new approach wasclearly needed. I set about researching the habits of snakes to find the easiest way totrap them. Luckily these reptiles are small and that made the solution easier.
Prepared with some research findings, I decided on three possible
approaches: firstly, removing their habitat; secondly, attracting them into a trap using male or female perfume or food; and thirdly cooling them so that they would become sleepy and could be easily caught. I decided to use the last one. I bought an ice-cream maker which was made of stainless steel. Between the outside and the inside walls of the bowl there is some jelly, which freezes when cooled. I put the bowl into the fridge and waited for 24 hours. At the same time I prepared some ice-cubes.
The next morning I got up early before the sun was hot. I placed the frozen
bowl over the snakes' habitat and the ice-cubes on top of the bowl to keep it cool. Finally I covered the whole thing with a large bucket. Then I waited. After two hours I removed the bucket and the bowl. The snakes were less active but they were still too fast for me. They abruptly disappeared into a convenient hole in the wall. So I had to adjust my plan.
For the second attempt I froze the bowl and the ice-cubes again but placed
them over the snakes' habitat in the evening, as the temperature was starting to cool. Then as before, I covered the bowl with the bucket and left everything overnight. Early the next morning I returned to see the result. This time with great caution I bent down to examine the snakes and I found them very sleepy. But once picked up, they tried to bite me. As they were poisonous snakes, I clearly needed to improve my design again.
My third attempt repeated the second procedure. The next morning I carried in my hand a small net used for catching fish. This was in the expectation that the snakes would bite again. But monitored carefully, the snakes proved to be no trouble and all went according to plan. I collected the passive snakes and the next day we merrily released them all back into the wild.
Pressed by my friends and relations, I decided to seize the opportunity to
get recognition for
my successful idea by sending my invention to the patent office. Only after you have had that
recognition can you say that you are truly an inventor. The criteria are so strict that it is difficult to get new ideas accepted unless they are truly novel. In addition, no invention will get a patent if it is:◎a discovery
◎a scientific idea or mathematical model◎literature or art◎a game or a business◎a computer programme◎a new animal or plant variety
Nor will you receive a patent until a search has been made to find out
that your product really
is different from everyone else's. There are a large number of patent examiners, too, whose only job is to examine whether your claim is valid or not. If it passes all the tests, your application for a patent will be published 18 months from the date you apply. So I have filled in the form and filed my patent application with the Patent Office. Now it's a matter of waiting and hoping. You'll know if I succeed by the size of my bank balance! Wish me luck!
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Scotland, but when he was
young his family moved to Boston, USA. His mother was almost entirely deaf, so Alexander became interested in helping deaf people communicate and in deaf education. This interest led him to invent the microphone. He found that by pressing his lips against his mother's forehead, he could make his mother understand what he was saying.
He believed that one should always be curious and his most famous saying
was:
\"Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time
you do you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before.
Follow it up, explore all around it, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the result of thought.\"
It was this exploring around problems and his dynamic spirit that led to his most
famous invention - the telephone in 1876. Bell never set out to invent the telephone and what he was trying to design was a multiple telegraph. This original telegraph sent a message over distances using Morse code (a series of dots tapped out along a
wire in a particular order). But only one message could go at a time. Bell wanted to improve it so that it could send several messagesat the same time. He designed a machine that would separate different sound waves and allow different conversations to be held at the same time. But he found the problem difficult to solve. One day as he was experimenting with one end of a straw joined to a deaf man's ear drum and the other to a piece of smoked glass, Bell noticed that when he spoke into the ear, the straw drew sound waves on the glass. Suddenly he had a flash of inspiration. If sound waves could be reproduced in a moving electrical current, they could be sent along a wire. In searching to improve the telegraph,Bell had invented the first telephone!
Bell was fully aware of the importance of his invention and wrote to his
father:
\"The day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just
like water or gas –and friends will talk to each other without leaving home.\"
The patent was given in 1876, but it was not until five days later that
Bell sent his first telephone messageto his assistant Watson. The words have now become famous:
\"Mr Watson - come here - I want to see you.\"
Alexander Graham Bell was not a man to rest and he interested himself in many other areas of invention. He experimented with helicopter designs and flying machines. While searching for a kite strong enough to carry a man into the air, Bell experimented putting triangles together and discovered the tetrahedron shape. Being very stable, it has proved invaluable in the design of bridges.
Bell was an inventor all his life. He made his first invention at eleven and his last at seventy- five. Although he is most often associated with the invention of the telephone, he was indeed a continuing searcher after practical solutions to improve the quality of everybody's life.
选修 8 Unit 4 Pygmalion-ReadingPYGMALIONMAIN CHARACTERS:Eliza Doolittle (E):
a poor flower girl who is ambitious to improve herself
ofa
Professor Higgins (H): an expert in phonetics, convinced that the qualityperson's English decides his/her position in society
Colonel Pickering (CP): an officer in the army and later a friend of Higgins' who sets him a taskAct OneMEETINGS
FATEFUL
11 :15 pm in London, England in 1914 outside a theatre. It is pouring with rain and cab whistles are blowing in all directions. A man is hiding from the rain listening to people's language and watching their reactions. While watching, he makes notes.
Nearby a flower girl wearing dark garments and a woollen scarf is also sheltering from the rain. A gentleman (G) passes and hesitates for a moment.E: Come over ’ ere, cap’ in, and buy me flowers off a poor girl.G: I'm sorry but I haven't any change.E: I can giv’ ou change, cap’ in.
G: (surprised) For a pound? I'm afraid I've got nothing less.
Captain. Take this for three pence.E: (hopefully) Oah! Oh, do buy a flower off me,(holds up some dead flowers)
G:(uncomfortably) Now don't be troublesome, there's a good girl. (looks in his
wallet and sounds more friendly) But, wait, here's some small change. Will that be of any use to you? It's raining heavily now, isn't it? (leaves)
E:(disappointed at the outcome, but thinking it is better than nothing) Thank you, sir. (sees a man taking notes and feels worried) Hey! I ain ’donet nothing wrong by speaking to that gentleman. I've a right to sell flowers, I have. I ainhonest girl I am! (begins to cry)
H: (kindly) There! There! Who's hurting you, you silly girl? What do you take me for?(gives her a handkerchief)
E:I thought maybe you was a policeman in disguise. H:Do I look like a policeman?
E:(still worried) Then why did 'ou take down my words for? How do I know whether 'ou took me down right? 'ou just show me what 'ou've wrote about me! H:Here you are. (hands over the paper covered in writing)
E:What's that? That ain't proper writing. I can't read that. (pushes it back at him) H:I can. (reads imitating Eliza) \"Come over' ere, cap'in, and buy me flowers off a poor girl.\" (in his own voice) There you are and you were born inLisson Grove if I'm not mistaken.
E:(looking confused) What if I was? What's it to you?
CP: (has been watching the girl and now speaks to Higgins) That's quite brilliant! How did you do that, may I ask?
H:Simply phonetics studied and classified from people's own speech. That's my profession and also my hobby. You can place a man by just a few remarks. I can
place any spoken conversation within six miles, and even within two streets London sometimes.
CP: Let me congratulate you! But is there an income to be made in that?
H:Yes, indeed. Quite a good one. This is the age of the newly rich. People begin their working life in a poor neighbourhood of London with 80 pounds a year and end in a rich one with 100 thousand. But they betray themselves every time they open their mouths. Now once taught by me, she'd become an upper class lady ... CP: Is that so? Extraordinary!
H:(rudely) Look at this girl with her terrible English: the English that will condemn her to the gutter to the end of her days. But, sir, (proudly) once educated to speak properly, that girl could pass herself off in three months as a duchess at an ambassador's garden party. Perhaps I could even find her a place as a lady's maid or a shop assistant, which requires better English.
tno thief.
in ’ E:What's that you say? A shop assistant? Now that's sommat I want, that is! H:(ignores her) Can you believe that?
CP: Of course! I study many Indian dialects myself and ... H:Do you indeed? Do you know Colonel Pickering?
CP: Indeed I do, for that is me. Who are you?
H:I'm Henry Higgins and I was going to India to meet you. CP: And I came to England to make your acquaintance! E:What about me? How'll you help me?
H:Oh, take that. (carelessly throws a handful of money into her basket) We must have a celebration, my dear man. (leave together)
E:(looking at the collected money in amazement) Well, I never. A whole pound! A fortune! That'll help me, indeed it will. Tomorrow I'll find you, Henry Higgins. Just you wait and see! All that talk of (imitates him) \"authentic English\" ... (in her own voice) I'll see whether you can get that for me ... (goes out)
Act Two, Scene 1MAKING THE BET
It is 11am in Henry Higgins' house the next day. Henry Higgins and Colonel
Pickering are sitting deep in conversation.H:Do you want to hear any more sounds? CP: No, thank you. I rather fancied myself because I can pronounce twenty-four distinct vowel sounds; but your one hundred and thirty beat me. I can't distinguish most of them.H:
(laughing) Well, that comes with practice.
There is a knock and Mrs Pearce (MP), the housekeeper, comes in with
cookies, a teapot, some cream and two cups. MP: (hesitating) A young girl is asking to see you.H:A young girl! What does she want?
MP: Well, she's quite a common kind of girl with dirty nails.I thought perhaps you wanted her to talk into your machines.H:
Why? Has she got an interesting accent? We'll see.Show her in, Mrs Pearce.
MP: (only half resigned to it) Very well, sir. (goes downstairs) H:This is a bit of luck. I'll show you how I make records on wax disks ... MP: (returning) This is the young girl, sir. (Eliza comes into the room shyly following Mrs Pearce. She is dirty and wearing a shabby dress. She curtsies to the two men.)H:
(disappointed) Why! I've got this girl in my records. She's the one we saw
the other day. She's no use at all. Take her away.
CP: (gently to Eliza) What do you-want, young lady?E:(upset) I wanna be a lady in a flower shop 'stead o' selling flowers in the street. But they won't take me 'less I speak better. So here I am, ready to pay him. I'm not asking for any favours - and he treats me like dirt.
H:How much?
E:(happier) Now yer talking. A lady friend of mine gets French lessons for two shillings an hour from a real Frenchman. You wouldn't have the face to ask me for the same for teaching me as yer would for French. So I won't give yer more than a shilling.
H:(ignoring Eliza and speaking to Pickering) If you think of how much money this girl has - why, it's the best offer I've had! (to Eliza) But if I teach you, I'll be
worse than a father.
CP: I say, Higgins. Do you remember what you said last night? I'll say you're the greatest teacher alive if you can pass her off as a lady. I'll be the referee for this little bet and pay for the lessons too ... E:
(gratefully) Oh, yer real good, yer are. Thank you, Colonel.
H: Oh, she is so deliciously low. (compromises) OK, I'll teach you. (toMrs Pearce) But she'll need to be cleaned first. Take her away, Mrs Pearce. Wash her and burn her horrible clothes. We'll buy her new ones. What's your name, girl?
E:I'm Eliza Doolittle and I'm clean. My clothes went to the laundry when I washed last week.
MP: Well, Mr Higgins has a bathtub of his own and he has a bath every morning. If these two gentlemen teach you, you'll have to do the same. They won't like the smell of you otherwise.
E:(sobbing) I can't. I dursn't. It ain't natural and it'd kill me. I've never had a bath in my life; not over my whole body, neither below my waist nor taking my vest off. I'd never have come if I'd known about this disgusting thing you want me to do ...H:Once more, take her away, Mrs Pearce, immediately. (Outside Eliza is still weeping with Mrs Pearce) You see the problem, Pickering. It'll be how to teach her grammar, not just pronunciation. She's in need of both.
CP: And there's another problem, Higgins. What are we going to do once the experiment is over? H:(heartily) Throw her back.
CP: But you cannot overlook that! She'll be changed and she has feelings too. We must be practical, mustn't we?H:
Well, we'll deal with that later. First, we must plan the best way to teach her.
CP: How about beginning with the alphabet. That's usually considered very effective ... (fades out as they go offstage together)
选修 8 Unit 5 Meeting your ancestors-Reading
A VISIT TO THE ZHOUKOUDIAIN CA
VES
A group of students (S) from England has come to the Zhoukoudian caves for a visit.An archaeologist (A) is showing them round.A:
Welcome to the Zhoukoudian caves here in China. It is a great pleasure to meet you students from England, who are interested in archaeology. You must be aware that it's here that we found evidence of some of the earliest people who lived in this part of the world. We've been excavating here for many years and ...
S1: I'm sorry to interrupt you but how could they live here? There are only rocks and trees.
A:Good question. You are an acute observer. We have found human and animal
bones in those caves higher up the hill as well as tools and other objects. So we think it is reasonable to assume they lived in these caves, regardless of the cold.
S2: How did they keep warm? They couldn't have mats, blankets or quilts like we do. A:We've discovered fireplaces in the centre of the caves where they made fires. That would have kept them warm, cooked the food and scared wild beasts away as well. We have been excavating layers of ash almost six metres thick, which suggests that they might have kept the fire burning all winter. We haven't found any doors but we think they might have hung animal skins at the cave mouth to keep out the cold during the freezing winter.
S3: What wild animals were there all that time ago?
A:Well, we've been finding the bones of tigers and bears in the caves, and we think these were their most dangerous enemies. Now what do you think this tells us about the life of these early people? (shows picture of a sewing needle) S2.: Gosh! That's a needle. Goodness, does that mean they repaired things? A:What else do you think it might have been used for?
S4: Let me look at it. It's at most three centimetres long. Ah yes, it seems to be made of bone. I wonder how they made the hole for the ...
S2: (interrupting) Do you mean that they made their own clothes? Where did they get the material?
A:They didn't have material like we have today. Can you guess what they used? Sl: Wow! Did they wear clothes made entirely of animal skins? How did they prepare them? I'msure they were quite heavy to cut and sew together.
A:Our evidence suggests that they did wear clothes made from animal skins. We continue discovering tools that were sharpeners for other tools. It seems that they used the sharpened stone tools to cut up animals and remove their skin. Then smaller scrapers were probably used to remove the fat and meat from the skin. After that they would rub an ample amount of salt onto the skin to make it soft. Finally, they would cut it and sew the pieces together. Quite a difficult and messy task! Now look at this. (shows a necklace)
S2:Why, it's a primitive necklace. Did early people really care about their appearance
like we do? It's lovely!
A:Yes, and so well preserved. What do you think it's made of?.
S4:Let me see. Oh, I think some of the beads are made of animal bones but others are made of shells.
A:How clever you are! One bone is actually an animal tooth and the shells are from the seaside. Can you identify any other bones?
S1:This one looks very much like a fish bone. Is that reasonable?
A:Yes, indeed, as the botanical analyses have shown us, all the fields around here used to be part of a large shallow lake. Probably there were fish in it.
S3:But a lake is not the sea. We are miles from the sea, so how did the seashells get here?
A:Perhaps there was trade between early peoples or they travelled to the seaside on their journeys. We know that they moved around, following the herds of animals. They didn't grow their own crops, but picked fruit when it ripened and hunted animals. That's why they are called hunters and gatherers. Now, why don't we go and visit the caves?
THE FEAST: 18,000 BC
Worried about the preparations for her feast, Lala quickly turned for home
with her collection of nuts, melons and other fruit. It was the custom of family groups to separate and then gather again at different sites for reunions as they followed the animal herds across the grasslands. A wrinkle appeared on her forehead. If only it could be just like last year! At that time she had been so happy when Dahu chose her as the future mother of his children. He was the best toolmaker in the group and it was a great honour for her to be chosen. She remembered the blood pulsing through her veins. She had felt so proud as the group shouted loudly to applaud his choice. If only she had looked ahead and planned better this year! Then she wouldn't have been feeling so worried now.
Having heard wolves howling in the forest, Lala accelerated her walk up
the path to the caves fearing that there might be wild beasts lying in wait for her. Shehad no man with his spear to protect her. She had almost reached her destination whena delicious smell arrested her progress and she stopped. So the men had brought homethe meat for the feast! The smell of cooking meat filled the air surrounding her, and
her senses became dizzy with hunger. She could see her mother and the older childrenpreparing the deer and pig meat over the fire. Her aunts were making clothes withanimal skins. Abruptly she sat down, only to be scooped up by her laughing, shoutingsister, Luna. Lala smiled with relief. It was good to have her family around her.
Just then a tall man came up behind her. He had a large, square face, with
strongly pronounced eyebrows and cheekbones. Over his shoulder he carried several fish and some pieces of wood under his arm. Lala smiled and handed some stone scrapers over to Dahu, who smiled and went outside the cave to begin his task.First he looked carefully at the scrapers and then went to a corner of the
cave and pulled out some more tools. They were in a pile with other sharp
arrowheads and stone axe-heads. He chose one large stone and began to use it like a hammer striking the edge of the scraper that needed sharpening. Now and then Dahu would stop, look at it and try it against his hand before continuing his task. He stopped when he felt the scrapers were sharp enough to cut up the meat and scrape the fish. As he passed them to Lala, the first of the guests from the neighbouring caves began to arrive for dinner. Lala's spirits rose. Yes, it was going to be just as wonderful as last year! She smiled to herself gaily and went out of the cave to welcome her friends and neighbours.
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