Dịch bài

dịch bài: 
1. A variety of cultural modes - in tool making, diet, shelter, and possibly social arrangements and spiritual expression - arose as humans adapted to different geographic and climatic zones and the database of knowledge grew. Sites from all over the world show seasonal migration patterns and efficient exploitation of a wide range of plant and animal foods. Archaeologists recognize 5 basic toolmaking traditions as arising and often coexisting from more than 2.5 million years ago to the near past: (1) the chopper tradition also known as the Oldovan - found in Africa, producing crude chopping tools and simple flake tools; (2) the birace or handaxe tradition, found in Africa, west and south Europe, and south Asia, producing pointed hand axes chipped on both faces for cutting; (3) the flake tradition, found in Africa and Europe, producing small cutting and flaking tools: (4) the blade tradition, a more efficient technology characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic , found across Eurasia to Siberia and north Africa, producing many usable blades from a single stone, and (5) the microlith tradition, found throughout the inhabited world, producing specialized small tools for use as projectile points, in carving softer materials, and in making more complex tools. 
Sketchy evidence remains for the stages in increasing control over the environment. Fire was used for heating and cooking by 465,000 BP in W France. Firehardened wooden spears, weighted and set with small stone blades were fashioned by biggame hunters 400,000 years ago in Germany. Scraping tools found at certain sites (200,000-30,000 BP in Europe North Africa the Middle East, and Central Asia) suggest the treatment of skins for clothing. By the time Australia was settled, human ancestors had learned to navigate in boats over open water. The earliest bone tools found to date were developed 80,000 years ago in the Congo basin by fishermen, who created sophisticated fishing tackle to catch giant catfish.
Early human ancestors included artists and musicians. About 60,000 years ago the earliest immigrants to Australia carved and painted abstract designs on rocks. Painting and decoration flourished, along with stone and ivory sculpture, from 30,000 BP in Europe; more than 200 caves, mainly in South France and North Spain, show remarkable examples of naturalistic wall painting. Other examples have been found in Africa. Protoreligious rites are suggested by these works, and by evidence of ritual burial. Avariety of musical instruments including bone flutes with precisely bored holes have been found in Paleolithic (early Stone Age) sites going back as far as 40,000-80,000 years BP.

2. Near Eastern cradle. If history began with writing, the first chapter opened in Mesopotamia, the Tigris-Euphrates river valley. The Sumerians used clay tablets with pictographs to keep records after 4,000 BC. A cuneiform (wedge-shaped) script evolved by 3000 BC as a full syllabic alphabet. Neighboring peoples adapted the script to their own language. Sumerian life centered, from 4,000 BC, on large cities (Eridu, Ur, Uruk, Nippur, Kish and Lagash) organized around temples and priestly bureaucracies, with surrounding plains watered by vast irrigation works and worked with traction plows. Sailboats, wheeled vehicles, potter’s wheels, and kilns were used. Copper was smelted and tempered from c 4000 BC; bronze was produced not along after. Ores as well as precious stones and metals, were obtained through long distance ship and caravan trade. Iron was used from c 2000 BC. Improved ironworking, developed partly by Hittites, became widespread by 1200 BC.
Sumerian political primacy passed among cities and their kingly dynasties. Semitic-speaking people, with cultures derived from the Sumerian, founded a succession of dynasties that ruled in Mesopotamia and neighboring areas for most of 1,800 years; among them were the Akkadians (first under Sargon I, c 2350 BC), the Amorites (whose laws, codified) by Hammurabi, c 1792-1750 BC, have biblical parallels), and the Assyrians, with interludes of rule by the Hittites, Kassites, and Mitanni. Mesopotamian learning, maintained by scribes and preserved in vast libraries, was practically oriented. Advances in mathematics related to construction, commerce and administration. Lists of astronomical phenomena, plant, animals, and stones were kept; medical texts listed ailments and herbal cures. The Sumerians worshiped anthropomorphic gods representing natural forces, such as Anu, god of heaven, and Enlil (Ea), god of water. Sacrifices were made at ziggurats-huge stepped temples.
The Syria-Palestine area, site of some of the ealiest urban remains (Jericho, 7000 BC), and of the recently uncovered Ebla civilization (fl 2500 BC), experienced Egyptian cultural and political in fluence along with Mesopotamian. The Phoenician coast was an active commercial center. A phonetic alphabet was invented here before 1600 BC. It became the ancestor of many other alphabets.