Rock paintings in rainforest雨林中的古老岩画

Jack Guy

岩画是史前人类留下的宝贵遗产。最近，在亚马孙热带雨林中发现了大量一万多年前的岩画，这为研究早期人类活动提供了新的资料。

Thousands of rock art pictures about huge Ice Age creatures have been revealed by researchers in the Amazon rainforest. The paintings were probably made around 11，800 to 12，600 years ago， according to a press release from researchers at Britains University of Exeter.

Located in the Serranía La Lindosa in modern?day Colombia， the rock art shows how the earliest human inhabitants of the area would have coexisted with Ice Age megafauna（大型野生动物群）. Other pictures show human figures，hunting scenes， as well as animals like deer， alligators， bats， monkeys and turtles.

“These really are incredible images， pro?duced by the earliest people living in western Amazonia，” said Mark Robinson， an archaeolo?gist at the University of Exeter.“The paintings give a vivid and exciting glimpse into the lives of these communities. It is unbelievable for us today to think they lived among， and hunted giant herbivores（食草动物）， some of which were the size of a small car.”

The red paintings make up one of the largest collections of rock art in South America. At the time when the drawings were made， Amazonia was changing from a mixture of savannahs（稀树草原）， tropical forest and thorny（多刺的） scrub（灌木丛） into the broad?leaf tropical forest we know today.

“These rock paintings are spectacular evidence of how humans reconstructed the land， and how they hunted， farmed and fished，” said José Iriarte， a professor of archaeology at Exeter. “It is likely that art was a powerful part of culture and a way for people to connect socially. The pictures show how people would have lived among giant， now extinct animals， which they hunted.”

Iriarte was impressed by the realism of the paintings， in which early humans lived alongside megafauna. “The level of observation of the fauna was incredible，” he said.

Reading Check

Decide if each statement is true（T） or

false（F）.

（  ）1. The rock art pictures reflect the life of the Stone Age in the Amazon rainforest.

（  ）2. Humans in Serranía La Lindosa lived together with Ice Age megafauna according to the rock art pictures.

（  ）3. Mark Robinson thought it unbelievable for ancient people in western Amazonia to coexist with giant herbivores.

（  ）4. José Iriarte is a professor of biology at the University of Exeter.

（  ）5. The rock art pictures were likely to be made in a realistic way according to José Iriarte.

Languag Study

亞马孙雨林知多少？一起长知识了！

Complete the passage with the proper form of the words in the box. One is extra.

[species exist find insect stretch

experiment plant]

Amazonia is the largest river basin in the world， and the Amazon rainforest 1.  ______  from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Andes Mountains in the west. Amazonia is thought to be more than 55 million years old！ But most of

the plant life didnt begin to flourish until after the most recent Ice Age. That means it didnt

2.   ______  in the time of the dinosaurs who died out about 65 million years ago.

Best scientific assessments suggest that there are at least 40，000 plant 3. ______ ， 3，000 types of fish， 1，300 bird species， 430 mammals， and an incredible 2.5 million different kinds of 4. ______ living in the Amazon rainforest. The 40，000 different plant species 5.  ______    in the Amazon rainforest basin， include hundreds of types of ferns and thousands of different species of flowering 6.  ______    .