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
73
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
SuccessPersonalityAccordingtoaGallupsurvey,anumberofqualitiesarecommonamongsuccessfulpeople.Herearefiveof
Whowasrecognizedthroughouthislifeastheleaderoftranscendentalismmovement?
There’sasimpleideathattwoofWestGermany’stopcarmanufacturersareseriouslystudyingatthemoment,bothoutofselfin
IfanAmericanisinvitedtotalksomethingaboutentertainmentindustry,heorshemightnotmention______.
Britain’sSystemofEducationTheBritishCommonwealthincludesaquarteroftheworld’spopulationinone-sixthoftheworld
Theearliestcontroversiesabouttherelationshipbetweenphotographyandartcenteredonwhetherphotograph’sfidelitytoappea
ChangesarebeingseeninthesocialvaluesheldbytheChinese,inthe90’s.Whatdoyouthinkisthemostessentialvaluefor
InEnglish,"vis"bearsthemeaningof"tolookatsomething"andcanbecombinedwithaffixestoformnewwords,asinsupervis
ThomasJefferson,whodiedin1826,loomseverlargerasafigureofspecialsignificance.Americans,ofcourse,arefamiliarwi
A、Eatmorevegetablesandfruit,butlessfat.B、Domoreexercisestogetridofsugar.C、Drinkasmuchwateraspossible.D、Sto
随机试题
对于慢性支气管炎的病因,不恰当的是
免疫球蛋白中与过敏反应关系密切的是
A.五皮饮B.疏凿饮子C.实脾饮D.济生肾气丸E.左归丸肾病综合征肾阳虚治疗应首选的方药是
细菌性痢疾肠道病变最显著的部位是
排放有毒、有害气体的建设项目应布置在生活居住区的哪个风向位置?[2004-15]
背景资料:某水利工程施工项目经过招标,建设单位选定A公司为中标单位。双方在施工合同中约定,A公司将设备安装、配套工程和桩基工程的施工分别分包给B、C、D三家专业公司,业主负责采购设备。该工程在施工招标和合同履行过程中发生了下述事件:
根据《旅行社条例》规定,有下列()情形之一的,由旅游行政管理部门责令改正,停业整顿1个月至3个月;情节严重的,吊销旅行社业务经营许可证。
班集体形成的标志是()。
(1)直线l:y=x+m与曲线C:有两个交点(2)圆C1:(x-m)2+y2=1和圆C2:x2+(y-m)2=4相交
ThehistoryofAfrican—Americansduringthepast400yearsistraditionallynarrated【1】anongoingstruggleagainst【2】andindiffe
最新回复
(
0
)