首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Scotland Yard’s top fingerprint expert, Detective Chief Superintendent Gerald Lambourne had a request from the British Museum’s
Scotland Yard’s top fingerprint expert, Detective Chief Superintendent Gerald Lambourne had a request from the British Museum’s
admin
2011-01-02
55
问题
Scotland Yard’s top fingerprint expert, Detective Chief Superintendent Gerald Lambourne had a request from the British Museum’s Prehistoric Department to focus his magnifying glass on a mystery. "Somewhat outside my usual beat," he said.
This was not a question of Who Did It, but Who Was It. The blunt instruments he pored over were the antlers of red deer, dated by a radio-carbon examination as being up to 5,000 years old. They were used as mining picks by Neolithic man to hack flints and chalk, and the fingerprints he was looking for were of our remote ancestors who had last wielded them.
The antlers were unearthed in July during the British Museum’s five-year-long excavation at Grime’s Graves, near Thetford, Norfolk, a 93-acre site containing more than 600 vertical shafts in the chalk some 40 feet deep. From artifacts found in many parts of Britain it is evident that flint was extensively used by Neolithic man as he slowly learned how to farm land in the period from 3,000 to 1,500 B. C.
Flint was especially used for axe beads to clear forests for agriculture, and the quality of the flint on the Norfolk site suggests that the miners there were kept busy with many orders.
What excited Mr. G. de G. Sieveking, the museum’s deputy director of the excavations, was the fried mud still sticking to some of them. "Our deduction is that the miners coated the base of the antlers with mud so that they could get a better grip," he says. "The exciting possibility was that fingerprints left in this mud might at last identify individuals who have left few relics, who could not read or write, but who may have had much more intelligence than has been supposed in the past."
Chief Superintendent Lambourne, who four years ago had "assisted" the British Museum by taking the fingerprints of a 4,000-year-old Egyptian mummy, spent two hours last week examining about 50 antlers. On some he found minute marks indicating a human grip in the mud. Then on one he found the full imprint of the "ridge structure" of a human hand — that part of the hand just below the fingers where most pressure would be brought to bear in wielding a pick.
Chief Superintendent Lambourne has agreed to visit the Norfolk site during further excavations next summer, when it is hoped that further hand-marked antlers will come to light. But he is cautious about the historic significance of his findings.
"Fingerprints and handprints are unique to each individual but they can tell us nothing about the age, physical characteristics, even sex of the person who left them," he says. "Even the fingerprints of a gorilla could be mistaken for those of a man. But if a number of imprinted antlers are recovered from given shafts on this site I could at least determine which antlers were handled by the same man, and from there might be deduced the number of miners employed in a team."
"As an indication of intelligence I might determine which way up the miners held the antlers and how they wielded them."
To Mr. Sieveking and his museum colleagues any such findings will be added to their dossier of what might appear to the layman as trivial and unrelated facts but from which might emerge one day an impressive new image of our remote ancestors.
选项
答案
C
解析
语义题。文章中第六段先提到了侦探发现了一些minute marks,接着说后来又发现了full imprint,有前后不同、对比的意味,可见minute marks含义和full imprint相反,minute应该意为“小的,不明显的”,用作形容词。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/9ReO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Allthesame,iftherebenottheintention,thereisatleasttheaccident,ofstyle,which,ifonelooksatitatafriendlyw
Allovertheworldmenandwomenandboysandgirlsenjoysports.Sportshelppeopletolivehappilyaswellaskeepfit.Today
SuccessPersonalityAccordingtoaGallupsurvey,anumberofqualitiesarecommonamongsuccessfulpeople.Herearefiveof
Whowasrecognizedthroughouthislifeastheleaderoftranscendentalismmovement?
Inthelate1960smanypeopleinNorthAmericaturnedtheirattentiontoenvironmentalproblems,andnewsteel-and-glassskyscra
TheDeathofaSpouseFormuchoftheworld,thedeathofRichardNixonwastheendofacomplexpubliclife.Butresearchers
EducationalValuesDuringthefirstweekatNorthAmericanuniversities,studentsmustdoafewthingsinpreparation,solif
ChangesarebeingseeninthesocialvaluesheldbytheChinese,inthe90’s.Whatdoyouthinkisthemostessentialvaluefor
PresidentBushhasproposedaddingoptionalpersonalaccountsasoneofthecentralelementsofamajorSocialSecurityreformp
A、ThestoriesofHarryPotterarecriticizedinsomeothercitiesinU.SexceptNewMexiconB、YoungpeoplearefascinatedwithH
随机试题
下列属于企业产品处于成熟期的营销策略主要有()
与K对策生物相比,r对策生物一般()
A.毛细胞型B.小淋巴细胞型C.组织细胞型D.免疫母细胞型E.弥漫性大细胞型中度恶性的非霍奇金淋巴瘤是()
新建燃气、燃轻柴油、燃油锅炉房烟囱高度应按批准的环境影响报告书要求确定,但不得低于()。
下列选项中,表述正确的是()。
2009年3月,甲公司与乙公司签订的租赁合同约定:甲公司将其面积为500平方米的办公用房出租给乙公司;租期25年;租金每月1万元,以每年官方公布的通货膨胀率为标准逐年调整;乙公司应一次性支付两年的租金。合同签订后,乙公司依约支付租金,甲公司依约交付了该房屋
《游山西村》诗中的“山西村”,在今浙江省湖州市境内。()
()是广西少数民族人口中最少的民族。
反映新时期我国教育目的基本精神的是()
MotherNatureShowsHerStrengthTornadoes(龙卷风)andheavythunderstormsmovedacrosstheGreatLakesandintoTrumbullCountyo
最新回复
(
0
)