2013年5月26日托福阅读机经解析

　　第三篇

　　TOPIC Agriculture and Settlement around the Nile

　　有图有真相：尼罗河流域地图

　　主要讲撒哈拉沙漠和尼罗河对居民的影响。大家都认为尼罗河对于居民的定居是积极意义的，沙漠有着消极的影响。但实际上两个方面是相互影响。在很多年前，当时撒哈拉沙漠还是一片比较富裕的土地，土壤比较适宜，但是随着气候逐渐变干，撒哈拉沙漠已经不适宜人们居住，人们被迫迁移到尼罗河周围，尼罗河那里比较适宜人类的居住，但是大洪水在尼罗河的泛滥导致在溪流边上的人民到达介于河流和沙漠的一片土地上躲避洪水，退却后，人们恢复正常的生活。随着气候的变化，越来越多额游牧主义社群开始定居下来sedentary lifestyle，以庄稼的种植和农业的发展来不断的提供稳定的食物来源，其中谈到非洲农作物源于东亚。

　　解析：本文属于非洲农业史内容，讲解尼罗河地区农业的特点，文章的重点在于理解造成农业发展的原因，类似讲解农业发展原因的文章可以参照TPO阅读文章The Origins of Agriculture。同时文章给出关于尼罗河和沙漠的比较和对比。以下为对于尼罗河地区农业的特点的介绍。

　　Nile River

　　The Greek historian Herodotus wrote that "Egypt was the gift of the Nile". An unending source of sustenance, it provided a crucial role in the development of Egyptian civilization. Silt deposits from the Nile made the surrounding land fertile because the river overflowed its banks annually. The Ancient Egyptians cultivated and traded wheat, flax, papyrus and other crops around the Nile. Wheat was a crucial crop in the famine-plagued Middle East. This trading system secured Egypt’’s diplomatic relationships with other countries, and contributed to economic stability. Far-reaching trade has been carried on along the Nile since ancient times. The Ishango bone is probably an early tally stick. It has been suggested that this shows prime numbers and multiplication, but this is disputed. In the book How Mathematics Happened: The First 50,000 Years, Peter Rudman argues that the development of the concept of prime numbers could only have come about after the concept of division, which he dates to after 10,000 BC, with prime numbers probably not being understood until about 500 BC. He also writes that "no attempt has been made to explain why a tally of something should exhibit multiples of two, prime numbers between 10 and 20, and some numbers that are almost multiples of 10." It was discovered along the headwaters of the Nile (near Lake Edward, in northeastern Congo) and was carbon-dated to 20,000 BC.

　　Water buffalo were introduced from Asia, and Assyrians introduced camels in the 7th century BC. These animals were killed for meat, and were domesticated and used for ploughing-or in the camels’’ case, carriage. Water was vital to both people and livestock. The Nile was also a convenient and efficient means of transportation for people and goods. The Nile was an important part of ancient Egyptian spiritual life. Hapy was the god of the annual floods, and both he and the pharaoh were thought to control the flooding. The Nile was considered to be a causeway from life to death and the afterlife. The east was thought of as a place of birth and growth, and the west was considered the place of death, as the god Ra, the Sun, underwent birth, death, and resurrection each day as he crossed the sky.