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  3. In a cave in South Africa, archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a million-year-old campfire, and discovered tiny bits of

In a cave in South Africa, archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a million-year-old campfire, and discovered tiny bits of

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问题     In a cave in South Africa, archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a million-year-old campfire, and discovered tiny bits of animal bones and ash from plants. It’s the oldest evidence of our ancient hu-man ancestors—probably Homo erectus, a species that preceded ours—cooking a meal. It’s a long way, of course, from that primitive repast to preparing a multi-course meal on your kitchen stove, or sticking a quick snack into the microwave.【B1】___________________
    Cooking, some scientists believe, played a crucial role in the evolution, survival and ascent of early humans, helping to transform them from a ragged, miniscule fringe of struggling hunter-gatherers into the animal that dominates the planet.【B2】__________________
    Early humans may have been motivated by a simple benefit. When food was cooked, it probably tasted better to them. But Harvard University professor of biological anthropology Richard Wrangham, author of the book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, argues that cooking had far more profound benefits for humans.【B3】_________________As a result, they got a greater caloric-payoff from their food; a cooked portion of oats, wheat or potatoes provided 30 percent more energy than the raw stuff.
    【B4】_______________________And by cooking and making their food easier to chew, they avoided having to spend four to seven hours a day on mastication, as other great apes have to do. That freed up enormous amounts of time that they could use for other purposes, such as learning and developing language.
    Cooking, Wrangham has written, may also have led to the division of labor along gender lines and mating practices.【B5】__________________But that division also left the female cooks vulnerable to marauding, hungry males who might be attracted by the smell of the food. In order to protect them-selves and ensure access to the food for themselves and their young, a female found it advantageous to bond with a single male protector and provider. That may have been a factor in development of the basic human pattern of monogamy that continues to this day—as well as gender inequality.
    [A]  In human society, kitchens shrank in size and cooking for the family, once a communal activity that often involved multiple generations became increasingly the job of the lady of the house.
    [B]  As a result, human began to seek out new tastes and new cooking techniques, and more of us came to see cooking and eating as a sensual, artistic experience that was an important part of our lives.
    [C]  Moreover, since then cooking has continued to exert a powerful influence upon human civilization in numerous ways—not just by filling our bellies, but by helping to nourish the culture and rituals that form humanity’s social nature.
    [D]  By providing quickly-produced calories, it enabled male hunters to get back into the wild and stalk more prey, while females stayed behind and concentrated upon cooking the meat and whatever plant foods they could gather.
    [E]  But without our early ancestors’ innovation, you might not be here now to enjoy that broiled chicken breast and side of sweet-potato fries.
    [F]  As a result, Wrangham and others believe, human ancestors were able to consume enough energy to fuel the evolutionary development of successively larger brains. At the same time, because they didn’t need big guts to digest all that raw stuff, their body shape evolved to become more slim and lithe.
    [G] By using heat to chemically alter their food, human cooks softened the cell walls of plants to enable them to release their stores of starch and fat, and broke down the connective tissue in meat, making its nutrients more accessible as well.
【B1】
选项
答案E
解析 空格前指出，从远古时的茹毛饮血发展到如今的珍馐百味，是一个漫长的过程。但正如E提到的，如果没有我们祖先在早期的创新，那么我们今天就无法在此享用这些美味的食物。E开头的But强调了虽然发展演变的过程很漫长，但不能忽视最初那些创新的重要意义，过渡自然，文意顺畅，故本题选E。
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