岩洞里的档案

英语自学网

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Maya, Mayan
AD 950
Dr Douglass Kennett
Pennsylvania State University
Belize
Yok Balum
主持：haifaforever
校对：早安Miki
翻译&注释：haifaforever  
答疑：tvxqshell
口语点评：Redrum2407
口语节目地址：http://bulo.hujiang.com/menu/2120/item/691261/First, perhaps the most famous thing about the sophisticated Maya civilisation is the complex calendar which they developed, and which forecasts an end to the world in 2012 - next month, in fact. Although that's obviously unlikely to happen, the demise of the Maya civilisation might teach us a few things about where our own is heading. Their impressive architecture in the Central American rainforests, particularly the pyramids, and their incredible arts, maths and astronomical findings, are now just ruins and relics.
What caused the collapse by about AD 950 is something of a mystery. A changing climate has always been suspected. And now a new and very clever analysis of rainfall from geological rock columns found in caves combined with a scrupulous history keeping of the Mayan people is helping us figure out what happened. Dr Douglass Kennett is a professor of environmental anthropology from Pennsylvania State University.
"One of the nice things about the Maya region is that they're limestone-rich areas, and within limestone you get caves, and within caves you have stalagmites and stalactites. And these are actually wonderful archives for climate histories. So we targeted one in particular in southern Belize, named Yok Balum cave. And we selected this one because it had a large number of stalagmites and looked like there was good material to work with. And we actually kind of hit it rich with respect to getting a wonderful 2000-year record."首先,丰富深邃的玛雅文明最为著名的或许就是玛雅人发明的复杂日历了，也正是它预言世界将在2012年终结--事实上,就是下个月。尽管此事明显不太可能发生,玛雅文明的消亡还是能给我们一些启示,指点我们自己的文明将何去何从。在中美洲的雨林里，他们令人赞叹的建筑，尤其是金字塔，还有在艺术、数学和天文学方面不可思议的发现，而今只剩下残垣断壁，成了历史遗迹。
到底是什么导致了公元950年左右玛雅文明的土崩瓦解，这仍然是个谜。气候变化一直是一项猜测。如今有一项新发现通过从岩洞里找到的地质岩柱非常巧妙地对降雨量进行了分析，并与玛雅人一丝不苟的历史记录相结合，这项分析正帮助我们弄清当时的情况。道格拉斯凯耐特博士是宾夕法尼亚州立大学的一位环境人类学教授。
“玛雅地区的优点之一就是该处富含石灰岩，石灰岩中会形成岩洞，而岩洞中又有石笋和钟乳石。这些其实都是极好的气候变迁档案。于是我们就选定了伯利兹南部一个名为约克巴伦的洞穴。之所以选它是因为它有大量石笋，看起来会是不错的研究素材。结果我们真的撞了大运，竟找到了清晰记录着2000年历史的岩石。”